


Flower Child

by Monochromely



Series: Flower Child [1]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Depression, F/F, Human AU, Implied Lapis Lazuli/Peridot (Steven Universe), Implied Pearl/Rose Quartz (Steven Universe), Medical Jargon, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-05-30 03:44:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 51,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15088280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monochromely/pseuds/Monochromely
Summary: Garnet, Pearl, Amethyst, Greg, Yellow, and Blue—they've all lost someone. Lovers and daughters and friends and family, and that's not a wound you easily come back from.If at all.But this isn't an 'if at all' kind of story.It's a story about a sickly, little kid named Steven and his ever-growing surrogate family.It's a story about the kind of boy who'd extend a flower and a smile to a sad stranger he meets at a cemetery. Human AU.





	1. Blue

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally going to be a bittersweet but mostly sweet one-shot dealing with the Diamonds and Steven... but then I was, like, _what if I gave Steven a devastating illness?_

Her name was Blue, and it was a name that fit her like a glove.

Her eyes were that very color—deep and clear and cold, like ice, or more accurately still, like sapphires cut into tiny pupil shapes.

Her silvery hair, long and straight, except at the ends where it naturally curled, reflected the color of the sky.

And she was blue all over.

Not in the way blueberries and hydrangeas and the heavens were blue.

But in the way deaths and funerals and rainy days often seemed to be.

It was in the way she moved. She was naturally tall and graceful, and yet, the weight of her sorrow seemed to condense her entire being into slow, painful movements. She had a slight limp that dragged at her from her right hip downwards. She was but fifty-five, and sometimes… oftentimes… she had to use a cane to maneuver from her bed to the couch and back to the bed again.

(She didn’t often leave her bed.)

It was in the grooves cut deep beneath her eyes, betraying days and weeks and months and years of restless nights.

And in the tears that always seemed to be slipping down from their corners.

She was blue all over.

She _was_ Blue.

The shiny, black town car eased to a stop in the middle of a grassy path well-worn by tire tracks, and before the chauffeur could unbuckle herself, her patron’s door was already open, a metal cane preceding two slipper-enclosed feet.

“Mrs. Diamond, let me—“

“No need to get out,” she interrupted softly. “I don’t require your assistance.”

She leaned onto the cane heavily and leveraged herself into a standing position, straining against her aching body and wobbling a little when she managed to pull herself upright. The bright sunlight threaded itself through her braided hair and bounced off her silk bathrobe.

She blinked very slowly.

Pulled in a great shuddering breath.

And placed a withered hand over her heart that was beating all too rapidly.

The press would have a hay day if they ever caught the wife of Empire City’s most famous CEO strolling around a cemetery in a blue bathrobe and matching slippers… but she was lucky today.

No one was there to observe Blue’s slow walk to the mausoleum which entombed her daughter.

Her beloved Pink Diamond.

The mausoleum wasn’t really a _true_ mausoleum per say. They only called it that because Yellow insisted that _gazebo_ was too vulgar of a word to describe the structure where their dead child lay.

But a spade was a spade, and a gazebo was a gazebo; it was a light, airy structure with a templed roof at the top, and it was pink—for the sake of her name and because it was her favorite color. Her grave was embedded in its foundation, her broken body some six feet below it.

Step after unsteady step brought Blue to the stairs leading into the gazebo, and it was on them that she finally collapsed, her knees meeting marble with a painful jolt, but the sensation did not faze her. She even welcomed the bruises she knew had already begun to purple across her sensitive skin. 

Simply put, she deserved them.

And if it was a matter of just desserts, she deserved so much more.

Deserved this pain.

She deserved to be broken.

Blue’s fingers slid down the length of her cane until they rested at its base, and she lowered her forehead against its cool body.

(What she didn’t seem to realize is that she’d already been shattered.)

“Oh, Pink,” she whispered, and the breeze seemed to carry her words away. She used to imagine that they winged their way to Heaven, that Pink could hear her somewhere in the clouds, but that was a fool’s prayer, a childish dream. Benevolent gods did not allow children to be _murdered_ , and if they did, then they weren't really benevolent now, were they? “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry… I should have done more.”

With one hand still clenched against the cane, she stretched the fingers of her other out and then onto the engraving which bore the end of her daughter’s life.

October 28, 2014. 

The detective involved in the case had tried to console her by saying it was likely she died very quickly.

The extent of her injuries were just too great for her little body to bear.

Oh, God—how she had screamed.

“Yellow doesn’t understand,” she told the empty air, told her dead daughter as tears streamed unbidden down her face. “She thinks I should be better by now, that I should be done with my grieving… but I think she’s just scared to face what could very well be our final truth.”

That there was no getting better from this.

For either of them.

Mostly for her.

She was taking so many different medicines to combat the grief warring inside her body: antidepressants, anxiety pills, sleeping pills, medicine to lower her blood pressure against the stress-induced cardiomyopathy that she and Yellow had both thought was a heart attack.

Lately, she had toyed with the idea of making a cocktail out of them all.

Screw Yellow and her military regimented pillbox.

A final drink and then a long, long sleep.

What was it that Shakespeare had said?

To sleep, perchance to dream.

Maybe she would dream of Pink.

Maybe there would be nothing to dream about at all.

“Hey, Stu-ball! Wait a second! You can’t just trespass on—”

The loud voice forcibly tore Blue from her thoughts, and she twisted around just in time to not be totally surprised by the child standing before her.

He was a short, tubby little boy with round cheeks and big, brown eyes that were lifted along the edges of his wide smile. A balding, out-of-shape man (who was presumably the child’s father) was close behind, but he hesitated from coming closer when he realized that her attention had been caught.

Enraptured by this curious creature who was now proffering her a pink flower...

...from an extended arm that was bruised red and black and blue all the way down to his wrist.

“Hi, I’m Steven!”

His discolored arm deeply bothered her, but it didn’t seem to bother _him_ because even though he surely noticed her staring, he didn’t seem discomfited by the attention at all.

In fact, if she knew any better, she would almost say that his smile even _widened_.

“Hello, Steven,” she began cautiously (but not unkindly). She swept her hand across her face to wipe away any lingering tears. “What brings you to me today?”

“Steven, we shouldn’t—” The clearly embarrassed father tried again, but Blue shook her head at him as if to say that it was okay.

And it was.

This little boy wasn’t hurting anyone.

Besides, she was curious.

“We were visiting my mom, and I noticed that you were sad, and I uh”—for the first time since the conversation had begun, Steven looked sheepish as he pulled his unbruised arm across the back of his neck—“I wanted to bring you a flower.”

He prodded the little blossom towards her in a tentative motion that communicated a pure kindness she had rarely experienced before, and tenderness, heavy and sweet and alien to her in this dark age, climbed up the column of her throat and swelled in her chest as she extended the hand that was still glistening with her tears towards this strange child, this boy named Steven.

He closed the gap between them in an instant and pressed the flower into the palm of her hand, withdrawing just as quickly.

Stepping back to peer at her with big eyes.

They were warm and dark and filled with stars.

And then Blue did something she had not had an occasion to do for years upon years now.

She smiled.


	2. Greg

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Stevenbomb Week, guys! ~~Here's to hoping we all survive it because, oh, my God, it looks intense.~~
> 
> **P.S.** Thank you for the love you've shown to this fic so far! It's meant a lot to me. c:
> 
> **P.S.P.S.** At the bottom of this chapter, I've included a quick sketch of human Blue. She's... frazzled 'n sad. Someone give her a hug.

Trying to keep his dying son from bothering a crying, old lady in a bathrobe had absolutely not been on Greg Universe’s to-do list today… but here he was anyway, a torn witness to his kid extending his nearly deadened arm towards a woman who sure looked like she needed it. The little flower from Rose’s bouquet passed between their hands, and a tentative smile drew itself across the woman’s wrinkled mouth, and there was something stiff and sad in that very smile that suggested it was not a regular habit for her.

That Steven, in all of three minutes, had drawn it out of her.

Because of course he had.

He was _Steven_ , and every person he met was a friend he just hadn’t gotten to know quite yet.

All of Greg’s protestations died in his throat, and he could not help but lean back and consider—not for the first time and certainly not for the last—how lucky he was to be this beautiful boy’s dad.

His fourteen-year-old was _dying_ , and he didn’t hold that against the world in the way any other sane person probably would have. Heck, if Greg was dying (and he didn’t have the responsibility of raising a child), he’d be on the next plane to the Bahamas, ready to achieve Nirvana by listening to Nirvana as he danced topless in the moonlight with the locals.

Steven was _dying_ , and all he thought to do was give.

Where was the logic in that?

The reason?

How could he be so wise, so patient and understanding and good to be so young?

It didn’t make sense to Greg, and because it didn’t make sense, he was all the more amazed to watch his kid at work, charming this older lady who told them—in a quiet voice that lilted lyrically in a soft Irish accent—that her name was Blue.

“Blue,” Steven mused, tilting his head thoughtfully. He was sitting with her on the steps now, an adjustment Greg noticed with no small relief. Neither he nor the others had been able to get him to rest _all_ day long. It was a special occasion, by golly, and all he wanted to do was _go_. “I like that. It’s a very pretty name.”

She smiled again; it was a strange, little gesture caught between parentheses, and it almost looked young in a face that was otherwise very old. 

Two smiles in five minutes.

Stu-ball was on a roll.

“You said you were visiting your mother?” Blue prodded tentatively, and her expression sobered once more, like a stretched rubber band recoiling into its natural state. She had a tall face and big, half-moon eyes, and so the sadness in them was undisguised, as though her entire physiognomy was intent on communicating the uncommunicable inside of her. 

“Yeah, today was her birthday!” Steven started out strong, but at the end, his gaze flitted downwards and his voice relieved itself of its excitement. A drain unplugged. “Her grave is just a little ways down from here. That’s when I saw you.”

“And nearly scared us half to death when you ran away,” Greg muttered under his breath, leveling a playful eyebrow at his son, and his son, ever the good sport, parried back with an abashed grin.

“Ahhhh… yeah, sorry about that, Dad.”

Pearl had been monologuing about Rose—grand, sweeping gestures, occasional glares at Greg, and all—when they had noticed that Steven was slipping away, slipping towards a pink gazebo where a figure clothed in blue was collapsed at its entrance.

Greg had followed and the others had stayed because they all thought this was a Rose thing, or a kidney thing, or a _I-just-can’t-listen-to-Pearl-any-longer_ thing, but they had underestimated him.

At the very least, they didn’t come close to _estimating_ that extraordinary heart of his.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Blue murmured heavily. “You’re so young to be without a mother.”

“Thank you… and I’m sorry for _your_ loss,” Steven replied, looking behind him into the gazebo. He moved his weak arm backwards to trace his fingers along the edges of the grave, drawing Blue’s steady, questioning gaze. Greg intuited that she was curious about the bruised limb but was ultimately too polite to ask, which was a nice change of pace from constantly being harangued by strangers who thought his child was being bullied.

“You’re older,” he continued, and his too-old-to-be-so-young gaze shifted, his dark eyes boring intently into hers, “but that shouldn’t make losing someone you love any less hard.”

The effect was immediate.

It was almost as though the air was sucked out of nature, as though time had stopped in the middle of life.

Blue froze, all but an ice statue if it weren’t for her half-moon eyes slowly widening as she comprehended the words Steven had just spoken to her with an easiness that could have only come from a child.

He was fourteen, and he didn’t know any better—knew that he’d said something nice but didn’t quite grasp the power of his own statement.

How it was a sentiment that every adult wanted to hear but rarely had the chance to, because adults were supposed to be infallible.

Adults had responsibilities.

Pick up what pieces you can, and then move on. You have better things to do.

He breached something with those words.

A longheld taboo.

A grieving heart.

He opened a floodgate.

And one tear and then another and another streamed down Blue’s long face.

Because it was exactly what she needed.

Greg turned away quickly so Steven wouldn’t see him wipe at his eyes, wouldn’t see the snot threatening to dribble down his nose.

Because even though it’d been fourteen years since Rose died, he needed the reminder, too.

“When’d you get so wise, champ?” Greg eventually got out, his voice a hundred emotions thick. He sniffed once, flashed a watery grin that wobbled at the edges, and threw pretense out of the window. He was crying; there wasn’t any shame in that.

“I guess I get it from you,” Steven shrugged, clearly embarrassed. “And Garnet and Amethyst and Pearl.”

But no—no he hadn’t.

Greg and his three surrogate moms could teach him a lot of things about this world and what it meant to live in it, but goodness? Innate and true?

That wasn’t something that could come prepackaged.

“Thank you, Steven,” Blue whispered, and she placed her tall hand atop of his. Her touch was light, gentle, careful—a mother’s touch if Greg knew any better. Steven’s bruised veins stood out next to her pale skin. “I’ve wanted to hear those words for a very long time now.”

“Your hand is cold,” Steven remarked in return, but when the older lady moved to withdraw it, he shook his head with a laugh, wriggling his thumb from under her palm and onto the edge of her hand to stay her touch. “But that’s okay. That just means you have a warm heart.”

Another smile, a wide one that lifted the corners of Blue’s melancholy eyes.

And somehow, it was this one that made Greg realize that their family was about to expand once more.

Which was hilarious because they had all agreed to stop after Peridot.

Well, Peridot had agreed that they should stop after Peridot.

After a few more minutes of talking and collecting themselves and finding a tentative kind of peace under the bright June sun, Greg told Steven that he should probably bring the Gems over. Pearl was nearly beside herself with curiosity; even from a distance, he could see that her hand was balanced over her eyes in an attempt to spy on them more efficiently. Amethyst was obviously making fun of Pearl, and Garnet was just unabashedly staring at them from under the cool shade of her sunglasses. (Whether she would dropkick Blue or invite her dinner was to be determined.)

Steven walked off in their direction, his short arms swinging at his sides, and Greg watched long enough to see Pearl wrap him into a lanky hug.

But then he turned back to Blue because he knew what was waiting for him there—a question. It had been perched on her lips ever since Steven had first extended the little flower to her, and now, alone with Greg, it took wings and flew.

“His arm… what happened to it?” 

“That’d be…” he started immediately and then stopped just as quickly, because even though he’d been fielding this question for months upon months now, it never got any easier to swallow. He tilted his head skywards and tried to dissipate the searing pain seizing through his chest and his throat and his eyes, but these aches wouldn’t go away either. “That’d be all the IVs—oh, and the growth hormone injections.”

He tried to laugh, but the sound was strangled in his mouth.

“Can’t forget those.”

But he was stalling, and he didn’t have the time to be doing so. Steven would be back any minute, and even though he tried to hide it, tried to push down his emotions for the sake of everyone else in the room, his son hated this talk, hated being known for his disease or even _as_ a disease. Some people grasped it better than others.

“He’s in the end stages of renal failure,” Greg said hoarsely. “Dialysis three to four times a week, and he’s been on the transplant waiting list for almost eight months now.”

His arm was just a byproduct of everything else that was screwed up with his little body, and it was one of the few things Steven couldn’t tuck away on the inside.

The older lady in the bathrobe bowed her head, her messy braid falling across her shoulder and the beginnings of tears falling onto her lap. One hand gently cradled the pink blossom his son had given her, and the other reached backwards into the gazebo, trembling fingers feeling for something… maybe even someone… Greg could not see.

“Do you…” she faltered, and he had to strain to hear her voice. He drew closer without even realizing he was doing it, compelled into the atmosphere of grief she so consumptively embodied. His heart wrenched to look at her. It was stupid and undoubtedly absurd, but he felt as though he was looking into a mirror of his own despair—what it truly was and not what it appeared to be. He laughed and he joked and he smiled in these dark days, but these were circus acts for Steven and means of coping for himself. God, if he ever let what was really going on inside _out_ , he might never stop screaming. 

She tried again, her voice low and feverish, blue eyes drawn off into a distance and a place and a memory he could not and did not wish to ever fathom. “Do you feel as though he is being wrenched away from you?" She lowered her gaze to her palm, long fingers curling over the soft edges of the hibiscus. "You were given this precious, little life to love and to cherish, and he’s being taken from you right before your very eyes?”

She was too specific in describing the feeling.

The aching hole in his chest.

The fear that was trying to fill it.

He knew without even knowing that the dead person in the gazebo was Blue’s own child.

“All the time,” he whispered. “And it’s so hard sometimes, you know, dealing with that feeling.”

But Blue shook her head and looked up at him; even though her eyes were still glazed with tears, they had acquired a steely edge to them that cut.

“It’s hard all the time.”

And he could do nothing but accept the truth of her statement.

He brought the bottom of his t-shirt to his face and tried to wipe away the carnage, but when most of it was on the inside, there wasn’t really anything he could do.

“I didn’t get your name,” Blue murmured after a long moment of silence. 

A sudden change of conversation, but he didn’t have to struggle too hard to figure out why. Steven and the Gems were approaching. He heard their footsteps crunching through the grass. 

“Greg Universe,” he offered with a semblance of a smile, and he moved a little to the right so he could block her body from view as she dried her own tears. “Nice to meet ya.”

“I’m Blue Dia—” But she was cut short by a voice that was louder than its speaker thought it to be.

“Why is homegirl wearing a bathrobe? It’s, like, the middle of the day.”

“Hush, Amethyst,” Pearl hissed, all exasperation and huff. “Don’t be so rude. You’re wearing jeans _with holes_ in them.”

“It’s a fashion statement, P!”

“It’s a wasteful use of fabric!”

“Well, aren’t you a buzz—”

“We’re back!” Steven yelled, his voice thankfully triumphing over their bickering. Greg turned to greet them and found everything as it should be between the little quartet: Garnet holding Steven’s hand, and Pearl and Amethyst at each other’s throats. (They all loved each other.)

“Blue, these are old friends of Steven’s mom,” he quickly explained because the older lady seemed bewildered, and even a little overwhelmed, by this sudden influx of people. He had a sneaking suspicion that she didn’t, well, get out all too often if the bathrobe was anything to judge by. “They’ve helped me raise him.”

“Aw, to be fair,” Garnet said amiably, tipping her shades in greeting, “Steven has raised us just as much. I’m Garnet. Pleasure.” 

Amethyst took a long enough break from poking an increasingly annoyed Pearl to introduce herself.

“Yo, I’m Amethyst.”

“And I’m Pearl,” Pearl indicated with a sweet (if dramatic) curtsy. “Thank you for humoring our little Steven.”

“Oh… it wasn’t any trouble.” Blue looked up at Steven warmly. “Steven is a special boy.”

“Shucks,” he grinned. “You’ve only known me for what? Like, fifteen minutes?”

“Ah, but it’s been more than enough time for me to ascertain that I was very lucky to have been found by you.”

“Finders keepers!”

“I wouldn’t necessarily mind that,” she hummed playfully before deferring to Greg. “I live in Empire City, and if you live close by, I would love for Steven to visit sometime… if that’s okay with you. At any rate, I’d like to keep in touch.”

“Well, I’d like that,” Steven supplied cheerfully, and it was so darn cute; he looked like a little cherub with his cheeks puffed up in a smile.

“That’d be fine with me,” Greg chuckled. “You two should exchange numbers.”

Steven nodded in approval and let go of Garnet’s hand to pull out his phone, fingers poised above the keyboard and mouth opening to ask for Blue’s number, but Greg cut in one last time, affecting a casual tone that wasn’t quite casual.

“Empire City’d be really good for us, too” he told her, but he was staring at Steven, wanting to gauge his reaction. “That’s where Steven has to do his treatments.”

And maybe it was a little underhanded, but Steven had to know that Blue knew.

That there was no point in hiding his condition.

Because he’d tried _that_ a couple of times, and it always ended badly for him, always ended in him getting hurt by someone who couldn’t understand.

A slight frown tugged at Steven’s lips, and he could feel Pearl’s irritated glare drilling at him from his side.

She was a firm installation in Camp-Hide-All-Of-Your-Feelings-Away, too, but that hadn’t worked out well for _her_ either.

“Name and number, Blue,” Steven said, a fraction less perky than he had been before, but he recovered quickly because of course he did. He was _Steven_. He put on a good show and a smile.

Pearl was gonna give him hell tonight, but Greg could give it right back.

It wasn’t healthy for Steven to keep everything locked away inside, and that was the call he made as a father.

Blue enunciated her number slowly and added her name as an afterthought.

“Blue,” she said softly as Steven typed. “Blue Diamond.”

A cold shiver collapsed down Greg’s spine.

_No._

It couldn’t be.

There was no possible way.

She couldn’t have said _Diamond_. There had to be a mistake. It was a mistake, right?

_Oh, God_ , he thought when he quickly realized that it wasn’t.

In the periphery of his vision, he met the Gems’ equally stunned faces. Garnet’s hands were clenched into fists. Pearl’s were splayed indelicately over her mouth.

“Oh, Em, Gee. Your name is a pun!” Steven exclaimed.

“To be perfectly honest,” Blue whispered conspiratorially, oblivious to Greg’s reaction, to those of the Gems, wrapped up in playing with Steven, “that’s why I married my wife.”

Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl, and once upon a time, Rose, were leaders of an activist group called the Crystal Gems.

(No one remembered why they’d chosen to call themselves that to begin with. It’d been the early nineties, and they’d all worn sequin embedded clothes and jammed out to the Rolling Stones. Go figure.)

They held rallies for gay rights.

Protested against environment change.

Volunteered at local food shelters.

All those kind of things.

And to this day, they railed against the practices of Diamond Electric, whose CEO was Yellow Diamond.

Blue Diamond’s wife.

“You’re funny,” Steven grinned. “I like you.”

The expression on her face spoke for itself.

Blue Diamond liked Steven, too.


	3. Texts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH, MY GOD.
> 
> **THAT STEVENBOMB, THO.**
> 
> I WASN'T READY FOR IT.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this chapter bc it was written on a pure _Steven Universe_ high.
> 
>  **P.S.** My apologies if you've gotten multiple notifications for the fic being updated. I had some trouble uploading it. :/

**Sunday, 9:43 PM**

**Pearl:** You’re really going to let him go see the Diamonds?

 **Pearl:** After all they’ve done?

 **Pearl:** After all WE’VE done to stand against them?

 **Greg:** Its what he wants Pearl. who are we to deny him that?

 **Pearl:** He didn’t want her to know about his condition.

 **Greg:** That was different!

 **Pearl:** Sure, Greg.

The three dots of impending doom jumped onto her screen within an instant, but Pearl didn’t wait for what was surely another half-assed justification from a man who seemed to half-ass anything that could be half-assed. (Which was neither fair nor right, but God, she was livid.) She shut her phone down, placed it on the nightstand, and rolled back onto her pillow with an aggressive thump.

Which, of course, did nothing to alleviate the headache that had been beating against the back of her skull all day.

Rose… Rose wouldn’t have wanted this, would she?

Her son fraternizing with the enemy.

With _Yellow Diamond_.

Even the mere thought of the woman was enough to conjure a clear image of the imposing CEO in Pearl’s mind-eye. She had golden eyes and a hard heart, and her practices—from her exploitation of workers to the conditions of her factories—were far from ethical. She was a tyrant, a monster, a despot.

And Steven was set to enter her lair.

(An extravagant penthouse suite that had reportedly cost over 200 million dollars.)

Her little boy, swallowed up by the yellow beast.

Rose… Rose wouldn’t have permitted this…

… Right?

Right?

It was a single instant of hesitation, but it was enough, and her mistrust and anger and irritation at Yellow, at Greg, at the world, soon gave away to another emotion, one that had been swelling up in Pearl’s chest all day. She rolled over to her side and plucked her phone up once more, clearing Greg’s response away with a furious swipe so she could type in her password.

It was 7673.

It was Rose. 

She clicked the little photo icon and scrolled.

Scrolled past pictures of Steven as he slept during one of his dialysis treatments.

Past twenty Amethyst selfies that had been taken while Pearl wasn’t looking.

Past the family’s vacation to a cabin in the vast, snowy mountains.

And then she abruptly stopped, tapping once to expand the only image she wanted to see.

It was a picture of a picture, of a polaroid Garnet had taken approximately a year before Rose had met Greg, and everything had gone to—

Rose’s arm was wrapped around Pearl’s shoulders, and her pink lips were pressed against her cheek, and they were laughing.

Laughing!

And Pearl was in love.

Even in the blurry polaroid, she could see the faint blush that had traced itself across the bridge of her pointed nose like a messy pink scribble, could see the admiration that had made her eyes shine so bright once upon a time.

And she could feel the phantoms of warmth.

The warmth of Rose’s big, encompassing arms.

The warmth that had spread across Pearl’s entire body, that had electrified her veins.

A hot, itchy sensation climbed and climbed her throat until it welled up in her eyes. The phone went slack in her hand, tumbling to the bed.

Who was she kidding?

She didn’t know what _Rose_ would have wanted.

After all, once upon a time, Pearl had thought that she wanted _her_.

 _She would have turned forty today had she not chosen…_ She bit her lip. She didn’t want to admit it, not even to herself.

It did not compute.

 _She would have turned forty_ , she tried again. The tears dripped down her beaky nose. _And she would have been radiant._

**Monday, 7:02 AM**

**Garnet:** safe drive steven.  <3

 **Steven:** Thanks, boo.  <3

 **Steven:** And just so you know… I did think about what you told me last night.

 **Steven:** And, like, I really thank you for being upfront with me about how you felt. Pearl just straight up told me that I shouldn’t go, and you took the time to tell me why I shouldn’t go, but this is just something I have to do Garnet.

 **Garnet:** have to?

 **Steven:** I guess I don’t have to, but I want to.

 **Steven:** She’s really nice, and she’s really sad, and I want to be her friend.

Around her, the gym’s locker room was coming to life. Fellow trainers changing into exercise gear for appointments with clients. Early gym comers heading off to the showers for a rinse off. People talking and sipping coffee and slamming locker doors with aplomb. But Garnet was immobile on the bench, her entire world contained in the little screen sitting in the palm of her hand.

She was conflicted, and _conflicted_ wasn’t exactly a feeling she experienced very often.

It was unpleasant to say the least.

Like a fist nurtured into her stomach over and over and over again.

On one hand—one of the fists churning her stomach in nauseating ways—the memories and the rage and the rage those memories roared into existence tore through her overwhelmed head like fire in a forest. She saw Rose Quartz standing on a box in front of the D.E. building, the force and passion in her words inspiring disgruntled workers to join her in protest. Saw her own hands wrapped around a sign that screamed for **FAIR WAGES** as her hoarse voice did the same **.** Garnet’s own mothers, Ruby and Sapphire, had worked in one of D.E.’s factories overseas before they’d come to America.

They were the reasons she had taken up Rose’s banner in the first place.

Ruby’s calloused hands testified to cruel work—the kind of stuff that may have broken a lesser person—and Sapphire’s strained silence about those years spoke volumes where she could not.

Whenever they saw Yellow Diamond on TV, they would immediately blanch and grasp hands, as though they were afraid that she would reach through the screen and wrench them apart.

On the other hand—Garnet gritted her teeth to make this concession—Yellow Diamond was _her_ demon. Hers and her parents’ and Rose’s and Amethyst’s and Pearl’s.

Not Steven’s.

She wanted him to inherit so many things from her—some wondrous and some wise.

Love and light and patience and perseverance.

But not hate.

Never hate.

Garnet threw her towel around her neck and stood up with a sigh that reached into her bones and shook them for good measure.

 **Garnet:** okay… i love you steven.  <3

 **Steven:** I love you too Garnet.  <3

**Monday, 9:12 AM**

**Amethyst:**

**Pearl:** You’re not driving, correct?! If so, please put your phone down immediately! 

 **Pearl:** If not, very cute.

 **Amethyst:** chillllllllax P

 **Amethyst:** ste-man is getting a snack from the gas station. we’re about an hr out from empire city

 **Garnet:**  :)

 **Pearl:** Excellent timing, Amethyst!

 **Pearl:** Remember, his appointment starts at 12, so that should give you plenty enough time to check into the hotel and get situated there.

 **Pearl:** I’ve put the reservations under your name.

 **Pearl:** You have the debit card, right?

 **Pearl:** Oh, goodness. I think I forgot to pack M.C. Bear Bear.

 **Garnet:** i handled it.

 **Amethyst:** haha - nice save G

 **Garnet:** B)

 **Garnet:** i’m psychic

One of the double doors leading out from the gas station was pushed open with a lethargic kind of energy, and Amethyst, who had been leaning against the hood of her car, looked up from her phone to see that the wimpy gesture belonged to none other than her little buddy, her Steven. He closed the door carefully with his weak hand, nurturing a bag of Chaps in the other, and then, without so much as glancing her way, trudged right past her to the passenger side of the car, pulled the door open, and barreled in.

The door didn’t slam to a close so much as it did feebly stutter to one.

_Well, that was a huge yikes._

Not waiting to give him time to stew in his feelings, Amethyst pocketed her phone and proceeded to the driver’s side, pulling her seatbelt across her chest and cranking the ignition to her little Honda Civic in one, fluid motion. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that Steven was looking at the bag of chips clenched in his hand, but there was something in his expression—something unfocused, something glazed—that told her that he wasn’t quite seeing what he was seeing.

She pulled out of the parking lot and tried to keep her voice as casual as possible. “You okay, little dude?”

He wasn’t. Obviously. But it didn’t hurt to ask.

She knew Steven well enough to know that he’d rather drown in the ocean ten times over rather than share his feelings.

But she also knew that once he started talking through them, _like_ the ocean, they’d flow.

“Yeah… just got a little dizzy when I was standing in line for the register.” He laughed humorlessly, the bag in his hand crinkling in a way that told her that he’d squeezed it tightly. “But I guess that’s just a occupational hazard of this whole dying business.”

They were on the highway now, Jersey speeding past them in a blur of green and gray and black. Amethyst’s fingers choked the wheel.

“You’re not dying, Steven,” she gritted out, trying to see straight. The edges of her vision bursted with red, and all she wanted to do was pull over and slam the kid into a freaking hug. “Get that outta your head.”

“I know, I know.” He rested his elbow on the door’s control panel and leaned his head against the window. She couldn’t see his eyes, but their reflections were dark with trees. Perhaps they were just dark all over. “Just joking.”

Amethyst took one hand off the wheel and squeezed his free one. His skin was clammy and cold to touch.

“You’re not, but that was a good try, Ste-man.”

“What can I say?” He laughed again, and at least this one had a little more body to it. “I’m a virtuoso at using dark humor to cope with my crippling depression.”

And he meant it to be funny.

Meant it to be ironic.

But she wasn’t having it.

“You don’t have to be, though,” she told him, as serious as she could be. “Not with me anyway”

And he turned to look at her, his dark eyes widening in something that may have have just been awe.

She blushed furiously but blustered on anyway because dammit, this kid needed this talk, like, yesterday.

“I mean, I know you front with everyone else, but, like, you don’t have to do that when you’re around me, okay?” Amethyst’s grip tightened on his hand. “I get not wanting to talk about it. I get desperately needing to talk about it. I get _you,_ Steven.”

Because they were alike, him and her.

They had issues, and they tried not to think about those issues and only ended up thinking about them all the more.

It was a cycle she knew well.

She wished Steven didn’t have to.

He didn’t answer immediately. Amethyst withdrew her hand and replaced it on the wheel, driving in silence for as long as the silence stretched thin between them.

She felt his gaze upon her.

Felt the intensity of it, the sadness.

“I just… I just feel so bad, Amethyst,” he whispered. “All the time.”

Amethyst wanted to melt into her seat. A lump rose to her throat.

“I know, buddy.”

“I’ve forgotten what it feels like to feel good.” His voice was fragile—not in the way glass was fragile, but in the way a dandelion was. One puff, and then it was gone.

“I know.”

She heard a sniffing sound.

A surreptitious swipe of the nose.

Amethyst knew better than to look his way.

**Monday, 11:31 AM**

**Amethyst:** heyyyy greg. steven and i made it to e city. bout to drive to the hospital.

 **Greg:** Thanks for the update!

 **Amethyst:** yah. np.

 **Greg:** uh, what does that mean ??

 **Amethyst:** no problem

 **Greg:** i didn’t thank you for anything?? ?

**Monday, 4:38 PM**

**Amethyst:** sorry for not answering ur calls. just got back to the hotel. steven’s asleep. gonna have to text.

 **Greg:** He’s asleep? already?

 **Pearl:** What did Dr. Maheswaran say?

 **Amethyst:** yeah poor kid’s worn out

 **Amethyst:** she’s not happy w/ his blood count. she says his hemoglobin is low. if it doesn’t get better by the end of the week she might do a blood transfusion  
****

**Amethyst:** 4 days of dialysis this week instead of 3

 **Amethyst:** steven’s not happy :/

 **Pearl:** That’s it. We’re coming up there immediately.

 **Amethyst:** no!

 **Amethyst:** i mean, not that i don’t want you guys to be here, but u guys can’t afford to take any more time off work

 **Amethyst:** and we’ve got bills ’n stuff to pay

 **Amethyst:** not 2 mention the new iron pill dr. m prescribed

 **Amethyst:** like - i’ve got this

 **Pearl:** Garnet? Greg? What do you think?

 **Garnet:** amethyst is right.

 **Greg:** i mean yeah… I’m not happy about it, but she’s got a point.

 **Pearl:** Okay… but if things get worse, we’re coming up there. Alright?

 **Amethyst:** k

She’d drawn the curtains to make it darker in the room, but even still, a crack of blue light slipped in through the gap, illuminating Steven’s sleeping form. He was curled up under the blankets, which obscured most of his face.

His little button nose poked out.

His closed eyes fluttered restlessly.

Amethyst wondered if he was dreaming.

And if he was, she hoped that it was a good one.

Because frankly, reality sucked.

While Steven had been changing from the hospital gown to his regular clothes, Dr. Maheswaran had pulled her aside and given her a haughty once over that let Amethyst know at once that the doctor wished she were Pearl, who, out of Steven’s four parental figures had the best grasp of all the medical jargon.

“He’s needs a new kidney, and he needs it soon,” Dr. Maheswaran said. No sugarcoating. No bull. She didn’t have the best bedside manners per say, but the nephrologist would tell it to you straight, and that was what mattered most to Amethyst.

“Then find him one, Doc.”

“I’m trying,” she frowned, and the lines under her brown eyes became all the more pronounced. “But kidneys are a tall, damn order.”

**Monday, 4:48 PM:**

**Greg:** love ya champ

 **Greg:** i’m so proud of you

**Monday, 5:01 PM:**

**Pearl:** Call me when you get up! Love you, Steven.  <3

**Monday, 5:09 PM:**

**Garnet:**  <3

**Tuesday, 10:32 AM:**

**Amethyst:** picked up steven’s prescription

 **Amethyst:** we’re @ breakfast

 **Pearl:** How much was the copay?

 **Amethyst:** only like $10

 **Pearl:** :) I’ll add that to my ledger.

 **Amethyst:** neeeeeeerdddd alert

 **Pearl:** This ‘nerd’ does your taxes for you every year.

 **Amethyst:** and i appreciate tht but that doesn’t make u any less of a nerd

“Gosh, I was hungry,” Steven said around a mouthful of waffles. He already had his next bite queued up on his fork, and a trace of syrup dripped down the corner of his mouth.

Amethyst was hella relieved to see that his appetite had returned; last night, he’d stayed passed out until 3AM, and when he woke up, she could only get him to nibble on a couple of crackers. 

“Bet,” she replied, chomping down hard on a piece of syrup covered bacon, savoring more than just its taste. The sweetness was good, but seeing Steven in a good mood made it even sweeter.

“Who were ya texting?”

“Pearl. She was being lame and trying to talk to me about math.”

Steven chuckled. “You should try being homeschooled by her.”

He squared his blocky shoulders and clasped his hands behind his back, two actions which resulted in an uncanny physical impression of their dear Pearl.

“Now Steven,” he mimicked in a high, lofty voice, “you can’t just _move_ the x around like that. There’s a certain finesse to it. A technique. Here, let me do it.” He lowered his voice back to its normal pitch. “And then she starts talking about how my mom was great at solving division problems or something like that.”

Amethyst’s eyes were streaming. She banged her fists on the table, drawing a nasty look from a passing waitress.

“You’re a riot, Steven.”

“Thank ya!” He grinned.

When their meal came to a close—and it only did after they’d each slammed a couple of more waffles—Steven swirled the quarter of orange juice he had left in his glass, and Amethyst pulled out his ever-expanding pillbox from her bag.

Red pills.

Blue pills.

Iron pills.

Diuretics.

And by God, they were all big enough to be choking hazards.

“Ugh, Steven,” she muttered, her nose wrinkling in disgust. “I dunno how you do this everyday.”

“Oh, that’s an easy one,” he replied cheerfully, accepting her offering of his Tuesday pills. “I totally dissociate.”

“Solid, dude.”

Steven downed the pills one by one, chasing them with vigorous swills of juice.

“Tell me about it,” he gasped when he was done, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

They had another hour or so to kill before Steven had to return to the hospital for his treatment, so they took to walking down one of Empire City’s lesser known shopping districts. From time to time, they’d rest on a bench until Steven could catch his shortened breath.

It was during one of these breaks when the little bugger finally breached the topic of conversation she’d been crossing her fingers to avoid.

“If I don’t end up having to get a transfusion,” he began thoughtfully, head angled backwards so he could stare up at all the high rises poking into the sky, “I think I wanna text Blue Diamond soon. Visit her while I’m here, maybe.”

“Maybe…” She hesitated, and Steven was quick to snap up on it.

“Amethyst, I love you, but if you give me the same, old spiel on why I shouldn’t visit Blue, I’m gonna walk away.” She couldn’t tell if he was kidding or not. His voice was playful, but his eyes were grim, and his mouth was pressed into a thin, determined line.

“You’re sure bent on doing this, huh?”

“Very bent,” he agreed succinctly, nodding with dramatic precision before adding, “Super bent.”

Because there was obviously a discernible difference between _super bent_ and _very bent_.

Amethyst scratched her neck and sighed.

“If the doc gives you the go ahead, then text her,” she told him grudgingly. “I wasn’t a part of the team when all the big protests against Yellow D were going on, so I can’t tell you why you shouldn’t go.”

Pearl and Garnet seemed to have plenty of reasons, though.

“Thanks, Amethyst!”

“No big deal, dude.”

Their little bench was an island in the stream—solitary, stable, even with so many people flooding around it. Amethyst did as Steven was doing and tilted her head back to drink in the panorama from above, appreciative of the cool breeze that slid across her face and stirred her long hair. Her eyes closed against the bright, golden sun.

“I was doing some research,” Steven said, and he was very quiet. Melancholy.

Amethyst opened one eye to look at him, but he wasn’t looking at her. His hands were clasped neatly on his lap, his solemn gaze still offered to the heavens.

“A couple of years back, there was an awful murder that took place outside of a bar somewhere in this city.” He paused. “The details were too… gruesome, I guess, for the article to talk about. She was only twenty-one.”

She raised a questioning eyebrow at him. “Dark stuff you’re reading there, kid.”

His shoulder rose and fell in a half-shrug.

“It was a dark thing that happened.”

**Tuesday, 4:29 PM**

**Steven:** Hey guys! Just got out of treatment.

 **Greg:** how was it kiddo?

 **Steven:** Better than yesterday. We’re heading to the hotel.

 **Pearl:** I’m so glad, Steven!

 **Garnet:**  !!!

 **Steven:** Thanks! Love you all.

Amethyst read the texts in the group chat while Steven was hung over the toilet, puking his little guts out.

Insistent that Amethyst stay out of the bathroom until he was done.

She rapped on the door anyway, unsure if he heard her over the sound of his own violent retching.

Dialysis naturally had the effect of making him nauseous, but nausea was also a side effect of the new iron pills he was taking, so really, the odds were just not in Steven’s favor today.

“You okay in there?”

“I feel like the answer to that question”—he paused to gag—“is very obvious.”

 _Asshole_ , she thought fondly and barged into the bathroom. Kid needed a Sprite, a cold rag to the forehead, and a nice, little trip to bed.

“Amethyst—“ He whined, lifting his head feebly from the commode. The traces of throw up were edged along the corner of his mouth.

“Shut up, Steven, and let me love you.”

She grabbed a washcloth from the counter and turned on the faucet, the loud hissing noise just not loud enough to mask what was surely another round of vomit.

**Wednesday, 3:22 PM**

**Amethyst:** STEEEEVEEENNNN’S GOT A GIRLFRIEND

 **Pearl:** What?!?!

 **Garnet:** nice.

 **Greg:** way 2 go champ!

 **Amethyst:** asgdshafl 

 **Amethyst:** so dr. m’s daughter came in today to read to patients and like she and steven rlly hit it off

 **Amethyst:** her name is Connie

 **Amethyst:** and i’m calling it now. their ship name is stevonnie

 **Pearl:** I think I’m experiencing premature empty nest syndrome. 

 **Amethyst:** ya’ve got the nose for it

 **Pearl:** Rude.

 **Amethyst:** but anyway his treatment’s almost done and dr. m says his blood count’s looking better

 **Amethyst:** no transfusion!

 **Pearl:** Thank goodness. 

 **Greg:** ugh I agree

 **Garnet:** Woo.

 **Amethyst:** and he’s happy today

Amethyst glanced up from her phone to confirm what she was telling the others.

“Buuuuuuut Connnnnnnie, you can’t just leave it on a cliffhanger!” Steven was pleading, fingers mussed through his dark, curly hair in exasperation. “Like, Lisa is literally hanging from a cliff. I need to know what happens!”

“Okay, okay!” The dark-skinned girl pushed her wire-rimmed glasses up on the bridge of her nose. “One more paragraph… Mom’s about to unhook you from the machine, though.”

Dr. Maheswaran waved her off with a dismissive flick of the hand. “One more paragraph would be fine.”

“Yes ma’am!” She re-buried her nose into the thick book. “Lisa’s hand was slick with sweat as Archimedes…”

Steven leaned forward expectantly, hand tucked under his chin, M.C. Bear Bear clutched tightly to his chest right next to his dialysis catheter and all of the tubing involved.

And he was smiling like a fool.

Like a kid.

 **Amethyst:** he’s rlly happy

**Wednesday, 7:41 PM**

**Steven:** Hi Blue… this is Steven.

 **Steven:** That cute kid from the cemetery. :)

 **Blue:** Hello, Steven. It’s so very nice to hear from you. How are you?

 **Steven:** Could be better. Could be worse. You?

 **Blue:** Ah, likewise.

 **Steven:** I was texting to say that I’ll be in Empire City for the better part of the week, and I was wondering if I could take you up on that offer of coming to visit, maybe?

 **Blue:** Of course—I would love that.

 **Blue:** When would be the best day for you?

 **Steven:** Friday would be great if that’s ok with you. 

 **Blue:** Friday would be perfect. 1:00? We could do tea and cakes.

 **Steven:** Now that’s what I’m talking about!

 **Blue:** Friday it is then. I can’t wait to see you again, Steven.

 **Steven:** I can’t wait to see you too.

Blue set her phone down on the bathroom counter, and twenty sleeping pills slipped between her tall fingers and back into the bottle.

It’d been a bad day.

She wouldn’t have done it…

She hadn’t been going to…

She had just been _thinking_.

It had been a bad day, and then Steven had texted.

“Well, I’m home for the night.” Startled, Blue looked up in the mirror to see her wife leaning in the doorframe—arms crossed, a permanent frown carved into her striking face. “Stocks are down, and my investors are running for the hills. It’s a hellhole. I’m in literal hell.”

Yellow detached herself from the door and drew closer. The tips of their fingers brushed ever so slightly, ever so softly.

And that was about as physically affectionate as they got nowadays.

“How was your day?” Her voice sharpened at the end. “I see you’re still in your nightgown.”

“It was fine, Yellow.” It absolutely was not.

Blue gripped the edge of the sink to keep her hands from shaking, determined not to glance at the pill bottle she’d been holding just moments before.

“Are you sure? I could call the doctor right now. Check the dosage on your antidepressant, perhaps?”

“Oh, yes,” she muttered venomously, more to herself than Yellow, but she supposed she didn’t care enough if Yellow heard it, too, “because that’s exactly what I need. An upped dosage.”

That seemed to be Yellow’s only reliable solution when it came to _fixing_ her.

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing,” Blue bit out. “Nothing at all.”

And she pushed off from the sink, impelled by dull anger, her shoulder roughly knocking against Yellow’s as she went.

Her hand slammed against the light switch before she exited the doorway, and it did her a great deal of good to submerge Yellow Diamond into total darkness.


	4. Connie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought this was going to be a shorter chapter, but somehow it ended up being the longest chapter yet. 
> 
> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Thank you guys so much for your feedback; the outpouring of love on this fic has meant more to me than I can say. I feel blessed as a writer, and I'm sincerely grateful to you for being my reader.
> 
> While I'm fond of this chapter, what I really can't wait to do is get cracking on the next one in which Steven finally visits Blue. Stay tuned!

It was precisely five in the morning when the Maheswarans’ tan sedan eased out of the driveway and onto the blacktop road. The sun wasn’t set to rise for a couple of hours still, and the fading moon cast an eery, ghoulish glow on the still slumbering world. Everything was stained blue, from her mother’s white lab coat to Connie’s own hands, which she rubbed over her bleary eyes in an attempt to spark some life into them.

She didn’t usually go with her mom to work—being an avid lover of sleep and all—but her dad was on an out-of-state operation for a couple of days, and so she really didn’t have a choice in the matter.

Which she had absolutely hated at first.

_Being an avid lover of sleep and all._

But something… no, _someone_ … changed her mind.

Yesterday, she had met Steven Universe, and ever since they had parted, she hadn’t been able to get his goofy smile out of her head.

His loud, round laugh.

And the curious way he drew out her name.

As though it was full of exclamation points.

“Steven’ll be there, right?”

Mom offered a slight grunt in response, which Connie _supposed_ meant yes. (Mom wasn’t really a morning person… or, well, much of a person at all until she’d at least gotten three cups of coffee into her system. She was only on number one as of yet, and the creamy smell of hazelnut wreathed her travel tumbler like perfume.)

“What time?”

“Twelve.” The one word answer was terse and forbidding.

But Connie ducked under the lurid yellow tape and pressed on anyway.

“I didn’t get to ask, but who was that woman with him? The one who had her feet propped up on the bed?”

“Amethyst, one of Steven’s _many_ guardians,” she growled impatiently. “Connie, this isn’t twenty questions.”

The sharp rebuke stung the air between them.

A chill that the car’s heater could not touch.

“Sorry, Mom.” She looked out of the window in a vain attempt to stifle the heat rising in her cheeks, where it settled somewhere behind her eyes. The sickly tinged suburbs were beginning to give way to the long stretch of ancient forest that wound its way from her home to the city. The trees tall and everlasting. Friends and guardians in the daylight. Sinister, grasping things in the darkness. “I’m just excited to have a new friend… that’s all.”

It was a lie, and they both knew it.

She was excited to have a friend _at all_.

The kids at school didn’t like that Connie’s hand seemed to be permanently stuck in the air during class.

Or the way she lugged thick books around the playground.

Or how her glasses seemed to make her appear all the more erudite.

Which was, like, not her fault, but kids were cruel, and she just happened to fall on the easy end of their predatory food chain.

Priyanka Maheswaran let out a sigh that seemed to deflate all of her prickly, caffeine deprived edges; her grip on the wheel relaxed a fraction of an inch.

“And you have the right to be, sweetheart,” she relented wearily, a billion years old and yet only forty-two at the same time. “Go on. Ask your questions. I know you’re curious.”

The corner of her lined mouth quirked upwards. “I won’t bite anymore.”

Coming from _this_ woman, whose whole manner of being was like the scalpel she used during surgery—sharp, methodical, ruthless—an invitation to talk more was about as rare as an _I love you_. Connie blinked once before she smiled.

“Thanks, Mom!”

“Ask your questions, Connie” came the short reply, which Connie translated to be a solid _you’re welcome_.

“I… I have tons of little questions,” she began uncertainly, chewing on her lip, “but I think they’d all be answered if I just asked you one _big_ question.” And she expanded her fingers in her lap as if to realize the breadth of the thoughts swarming through her head like bees. She’d gone to bed thinking about Steven, and she’d woken up excited for the opportunity to see him again.

Eyes still searching the empty road for obstacles that hadn’t yet materialized, Mom jerked her head as if to say, _Go ahead and ask it then_.

So Connie took a deep breath and did just that: “How did he… how did he get like this?”

Even as the words left her mouth, she knew that they didn’t cover half the sentiment she was trying to convey in them. She was asking how he had ended up in the dialysis center, yes, and yet, she wasn’t asking _just_ that. What she was really trying to get at—in so many words—was how this kid, _this specific kid_ , found himself on the other end of a diagnosis that no decent person would wish on his worst enemy.

Steven Universe was the type of kid you’d meet on a playground after you’d fallen down from the monkey bars and needed a hand to get back up again.

Not the type of kid you’d expect to find in a hospital swarming with tubes and wires.

He was loud and he was playful and he was _good_ , and those weren’t things that were supposed to be shackled to a machine three times a week.

So maybe what Connie was trying to do was piece together the correlation in it all.

Him.

The disease.

His unwavering smile.

The machine.

He was a contradiction, an oxymoron, a particularly hard equation she wished to solve.

If only her mother would give her the unknown variables.

Mom sighed, and the shadows underscoring her eyes seemed to solidify into harsh lines.

“Loaded question,” she said heavily, “but I can work with it.”

But before she began to work with it, per say, Priyanka raised her tumbler to her lips and took a long, reverent drag of coffee. Connie could see the cords in her throat pulling the sweet substance down, down, down.

She had been reading Homer lately—the _Iliad_ this time, rife with glorious, bloodstained battles that were only palliated by the quieter intimacies of a fireside, a prayer, an embrace—so maybe it was no wonder that the image of a libation bearer came to mind.

A devout hero—an Odysseus, an Achilles, an Ajax—drinking the second sip of wine after he had poured the first to the gods in an invocation for strength.

For the courage to press on.

Priyanka set her cup down.

Squared her eyes on the road that unspooled through the dark like a ribbon—silky, its ends disappearing into the deep blue.

And began.

“It all started with Rose Quartz, Steven’s late mother, and she was the most infuriating woman I’ve ever had the privilege to know…”

◆

_“I was just a resident at the time, shadowing Dr. Howard—you know, that old geezer colleague of mine who thinks your name is Cindy.”_

_Connie chuckled at the wry reminder. “Yeah, I just stopped correcting him after awhile.”_

_“Prudent choice.” Priyanka briefly returned the smile. “But anyways, I was just a resident, and I’d been helping Howard with some of his cases when Rose Quartz showed up for her monthly checkup and—in spite of_ **_everything_ ** _that was wrong with her body—told us she was pregnant. I can remember it like it was just yesterday, Connie, how her hand tenderly tucked itself against the natural curve of her belly, as though she could already see a baby bump forming.”_

_Mom’s steady gaze on the road finally broke._

_Drifted to the roof of the car for an infinitesimal second._

_Distracted by a long passed memory._

_“I’d been familiar, if not intimate with her case for a long time by then… and I was disgusted.”_

“Alright, Steven—you know the drill. Hop up onto the scale,” Mom instructed without looking at him, scribbling something on her clipboard. Connie, standing just next to her mother, leaned up on her tiptoes to see if she could glean something from the chicken scratch symbols, and she thought she could make out the word _pale_.

Which—Connie glanced at Steven now, who had dutifully stepped onto the gray block—was an observable feature in him, she concluded with no little unease. Even against the ultra white of the hospital gown, his complexion seemed to be ashy in comparison, and every bruise he had was inclined to look darker because of it.

The monitor flickered and produced a number.

118.4 pounds.

Mom wrote something on her clipboard again, and the little frown that hung itself on her lower lip told Connie everything she needed to know, and yet, precisely nothing at the same time.

“Aww,” Steven said, tsking playfully. “It’s an even number.”

“Do you have something against even numbers?” Connie asked as he reengaged the floor once more with a totally unnecessary but very cute hop.

He had to think about it for a moment, dark eyes tilted towards the ceiling, head cocked to the side.

“Nah,” he finally shrugged. “I guess I just find odd numbers a little more… _exciting_ , you know?”

She giggled into her hand. She’d never heard it put like that before.

But out of the corner of her eye, she watched as an unspoken conversation passed between Amethyst and her mother.

When Amethyst frowned, her plump lower lip poked out.

_“You were… disgusted?”_

_It was a strong word to describe a pregnancy._

_The miracle of life and all that jazz._

_“Very much so,” Mom nodded. In the now graying dusk, her face had gained a pinched quality to it, as though she had swallowed something particularly nasty. “Because she knew damn well that pregnancy was dangerous for her, dangerous for any baby she ever wanted to have, and yet, there she was anyway. Glowing. Steven’s father—Greg—was sitting next to her, and he looked like he was about to throw up or pass out one.”_

_“I don’t… I don’t think I understand.”_

_“No,” Mom shook her head. “I don’t imagine you do. She had Type 1 diabetes—had had it ever since she was a teenager—and it wasn't even just normal diabetes! Even though she did x, y, and z to take care of her body, and even though she visited Dr. Howard so often they could call each other by their first names, it was still abnormally stressful on her body. Howard diagnosed her with diabetic kidney disease when she was only twenty-three.”_

_Mom dragged a frustrated hand through her graying hair._

_“I was so mad at her,” she said, her voice strained, tight, fervent. “I thought… I thought she was throwing her life away.”_

With Steven, her mother was strangely gentle.

Her words were still sharp, but her actions belied their sting in a way that Connie hadn’t taken the time to notice yesterday as absorbed by Steven as she’d been. She took his temperature and clamped a firm hand on his shoulder, smiling a parenthetical smile when he smiled up at her. She checked his blood pressure and was noticeably conscientious as she slid the inflatable cuff up and down his arm.

She and Amethyst bantered back and forth like two sailors home from sea.

“So how’s old Greg doing? Still washing the same five cars of the same fifteen people you guys have in Beach City?” Done with recording his temperature and blood pressure on the chart, Mom was now fiddling with the dialysis machine, bringing it to life with some mighty expert button pressing and knob turning. It began to beep steadily.

“You know it, homegirl,” Amethyst grinned. She was already sprawled in the chair next to Steven’s bed, arms behind her head, legs tucked up _on_ the bed. “I think his rotation’s next, so ya should be seeing him soon.”

“Nope,” Steven corrected her. “It’s Garnet’s.”

“Oh, _yeah_. It’s me and then it’s Garnet and then—“

“My Dad and Pearl,” he finished with a slight flourish of the hand.

Mom shook her head at the mention of Pearl—whom Connie did not know from Eve along with all these other people—a wry smile crooked at the corner of her mouth. “If it was up to Pearl, she’d have all four rotations.

“And then, like, she’d make up a fifth one just to make sure she had every potential shift,” Amethyst said, not without some mischievousness tucked away in the subtleties of her scratchy voice.

The three conspirators shared a knowing laugh, and Connie made a brave attempt at a smile that faltered the more she tried to hold on to it. Water slipping through her fingers.

_“She must have known how I felt because she pulled me aside once we were alone. Dr. Howard had gone to check on another patient and Greg had gone to the restroom, so she took me by the hand and made me sit next to her on the examination table.”_

And it wasn’t that she was jealous of her mother.

Far from it.

That would be absurd.

No, the something that was gnawing at her chest felt a little more nuanced than that.

There was an intimacy that her mother shared with Amethyst and Steven.

She had long been a part of their strange, little world.

And Connie was on the outside looking in, her fingers pressed against the glass.

Observing the microcosm they had created between them.

Wondering what it took to be let in.

(Okay, maybe she was a little jealous.)

_“You hate me, she had said. And I think I may have just glared at her, or if I did say something, it wasn’t very kind. I remember that I couldn’t look at her. I stared at my lap, at those godawful green scrubs that residents had to wear, and my fists were clenched on top of my knees. Maybe I’d been prepared to punch her.” She chuckled lifelessly. “Who knows?”_

_“What did she look like?” Connie asked as her mother took a deep, steadying breath._

_A not quite smile turned the corner of Mom’s mouth._

_“She was a very beautiful woman. Tall and big. Gorgeous pink curls—she liked to dye her hair—spilling over her shoulders.”_

_A not quite frown upended the not quite smile._

_“Steven looks a lot like her.”_

**_It was a fitting conception_** _, Connie thought._

_Steven as beautiful._

Steven was sharp, intuitive, more so than she had ever realized in the twenty or so hours she had known him. With an embarrassed jolt, she caught him staring at her from the top of the bed, his brown eyes softened in sympathy, in what was surely understanding.

The intensity of his gaze intimidated her, and she looked away, looked down at the pristine hospital floor where the scuff marks caused by beds and shoes and machines were the only scars that marred all the white.

She was being seen.

It was a foreign sensation.

“Hold up a sec, guys!” Steven said, interrupting the laugh session. “We gotta fill Connie in on who all these names are!”

“Heck yeah,” Amethyst consented with an almost serious nod. She grinned at Connie from the other side of the bed. “If you’re gonna hang around, Connie-Con, you’ve gotta know the whole cast!”

Connie-Con, huh?

That was a new one.

She couldn't help but offer a shy smile in return.

“Well, while you exposit, do me a quick favor and pull on your masks,” Mom said, adjusting hers to her lower face in an instant and throwing them each one. “I suppose we’d better get this ball rolling.”

Connie caught hers by the tips of her fingers and wrapped it around her ears in a few delicate motions.

Steven was still staring at her—she flushed to notice—and even though his mouth was now hidden, his wide smile could never be as equally as concealed.

_“And then—I’m mortified to admit this now, Connie—I let it rip. I read her the Riot Act and enumerated every single reason she had to be ashamed of herself. Her body couldn’t handle the stress. She had put herself at a statistically liable risk for all sorts of complications. Hypertension. Cardiac arrhythmia. Severe anemia. Death by multi-organ failure. Not to mention what her condition might inflict on the baby!”_

_“You never did have the best bedside manners, did you, Mom?”_

_Mom couldn’t do anything but accept the criticism with a bitter smile._

_“No,” she agreed grudgingly,“but for all the pansy hand holders in the field, I feel strongly obliged to contend that there should be at least one person who’ll tell you to it straight, no honey nonsense, no sugar. And Rose, despite all I said, despite every hurtful word I leveraged her way, did nothing to stop me. She just sat there and took it, a small, sad smile on her face—which made me even more angry, mind you.”_

_Mom took a hand off the wheel to indignantly stab it into the air, stiff fingers splaying towards the road._

_“What business did this woman have_ **_smiling_ ** _when I was confronting her with the fact that she was probably going to die? I wanted to shake her. I wanted to interrogate her. I wanted to know_ **_why_** _.”_

“So basically, I’ve got one cool dad and three great moms,” Steven said before jerking a thumb at Amethyst. “This is Amethyst, and she’s, like, the fun mom. We goof around a lot.”

Amethyst nodded approvingly at the description, her long, rather messy bangs shifting from behind her ear to cover one of her eyes.

“Yup, that’s me.”

“Steven,” Mom interjected, very much in doctor mode now, “prepare yourself. I’m going to flush your lines.”

“Roger that, doc,” Steven replied and leaned back on the pillow as she gently peeled back one of the shoulders of his paisley studded gown to reveal what Mom had yesterday explained to be a central venous catheter, or CVC for short. It was a thin tube that had been surgically grafted into a vein just below Steven’s collarbone. On the surface of his skin, it extended into two, short tubes called lumens that would be used to connect to the dialysis machine. Connie watched mesmerized as her mother quickly and skillfully relieved the lumens of their clamps, squinting at them with a searching gaze as though looking for any flaws in them, and huffing in satisfaction when she seemingly didn’t find any.

She was so distracted by this process that she didn’t realize that Steven had continued on with his introductions until what had been a vague buzzing in her ears materialized into his cheery voice once more. “—one we were talking about earlier was Pearl, who is the strict but very loving mom. And then there’s Garnet, who is just, like, cool; there’s really no other word to describe her, and like, finally, my dad, Greg, who is kind of the best. And that’s the family!"

Connie recovered her wits quickly enough to laugh. (Was Pearl the cool one, or was she the strict one? She hoped she’d never be tested on the specifics.) “That’s a pretty cool setup you’ve got there. Stick it to the nuclear family unit!”

“ _We’re_ a nuclear family unit,” Mom inserted dryly as she flicked the tall syringe she was holding. It was filled with some kind of clear liquid—a solution of sorts, Connie supposed.

“I dunno what that means exactly,” Steven smiled, all sheepishness, “but yeah, it is pretty cool. I mean, most kids only get to have one mom in their lifetime, and I’ve gotten three. They’re the best.” He slid his hand downwards and poked the tip of Amethyst’s boot. “I don’t know where I’d be without _any_ of these guys.”

Amethyst made a big show of pushing him away, but her brown eyes were bright with something other than the grin haphazardly slapped across her round features.

“Ugh, shut up, little dude. You’re making me emo.”

“Oh, no!” His eyes widened in mock disapproval. “We can’t have that, now can we? That’s Lapis’s thing!”

Amethyst and Steven’s belly laughs shook the bed.

_“And you know what she said to me?”_

_“What?” Connie asked when her mother wasn’t immediately forthcoming, seemingly lost in thought._

_“She squeezed my hand just like this”—Mom reached over and enveloped her entire hand, their fingers intertwining, warmth passing between them like a third touch—“and told me that she didn’t expect for me to understand, but she’d long made peace with the fact that she wasn’t set to have a long life and that before she died, she wanted to bring someone in the world who could enjoy all the things that she could not.”_

_“That life was supposed to be an experience, not a curse.”_

_“That if she passed away tomorrow, Greg and all of her friends would be left with nothing but memories, and memories were like petals. They were pretty until the crumbled to dust. She wanted to leave them with roots. She wanted them to have a chance to grow.”_

_Roots and petals and the potential for growth._

_Connie immediately thought of the sunflower fields near their townhouse, how the tall stalks bloomed in the sun._

_How all the yellow looked like spun gold._

_“I told her she was stupid. I told her that she could have had a relatively long life even with her condition. She could have lived to forty, maybe even fifty!”_

_Priyanka laughed. It was a harsh sound, like metal clanging against metal._

_“And she told me that once I got the giant stuck up my butt seen about, I’d see what she meant one day.”_

_“Did you?” Connie prodded after a long moment of silence. “Did you ever see what she was talking about?”_

Mom’s syringe hovered over one of the lumen for the briefest second before she injected the solution into its exposed opening. 

She had been watching Amethyst and Steven.

The way they looked at each other.

As though they had everything to lose if they lost each other.

_“I did,” she paused, reconsidering. “I do. Greg and all the rest? They’d be lost without Steven, unanchored.”_

_“That’s how they were for a long time after Rose died. I was there when it happened. I saw all their faces. I hope I never have to see it again.”_

_“How did she die?” Connie wished she could have taken back the question the moment it left her mouth. Her mother’s grip immediately tightened on the wheel, and the resulting paleness clamored up from her hands all the way to her face in the very way poison ivy slowly overtakes white walls._

_“We had to do a c-section, and her blood pressure was rising too rapidly for any machine or doctor alike to keep up with it. We delivered Steven, let her see him, and then started to work on her… but it was no use. She went into a diabetic coma and never woke up.”_

_They were approaching traffic and the city now._

_The sedan rolled to a stop behind a line of other early risers._

_It wasn’t a nuisance for her mom this morning so as much as it was a reprieve._

_Priyanka dipped her head and inhaled sharply, her black hair dripping, framing the sides of her face. Connie could no longer see her expression._

_She didn’t know if she even wanted to._

_“We pulled the plug two weeks later._

“I wish they could make a more flavorful saline solution,” Steven grimaced as her mom injected the replenished solution into the other lumen. “It tastes like salt.”

“Hence the word _saline_ ,” Mom remarked drolly.

“You got me there, Dr. M.”

With that tedious necessity out of the way, the process went far more quickly. She connected two tubes from the machine—or Steven’s robokidney as Steven slyly called it to the groans of everyone involved—to the now flushed lumens. The red tube accepted unclean blood into the machine, and the blue tube distributed filtered blood back into the body. It was a precise system and a slow one.

Since the lumens weren’t exposed anymore, they took their masks off and found themselves free to do whatever they wanted to for the next three hours, so long as Steven remained relatively still.

But he was a pro at this, had been for months now, and after Mom went away to tend to another patient and Amethyst wandered off to the cafeteria, Connie pulled _The Unfamiliar Familiar_ out of her backpack to pick up where she’d left off yesterday.

“With or without voices?” She asked, thumbing through the pages until she found her bookmark (a crumpled straw wrapper).

“What kind of question is that?” He snorted. When he did, the tubes nestled against his chest gave a little jump of indignation. “Voices, of course!”

“Sorry, sorry!” She deferred with playfully raised hands. “I was just being thorough.”

“You remind me of Pearl when you say that,” he said. “I’d love for you to meet her someday.”

She tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear and adjusted her glasses.

“I’d like that, too.”

She wanted to meet everyone who made Steven… well, Steven.

_The early sun was just beginning to creep towards and above the horizon, bringing with it the varicolored shades of dawn. A muted pink. A slowly simmering orange. Gold shot through all of it._

_The line of cars leading into Empire City was moving forward at a sluggish crawl._

_“So where does Steven fit into all this?” Connie could have made an educated stab at it by this point, but she didn’t see the need to when her mom was being so generous with her details._

_Priyanka took the opportunity to take another sip of her coffee as she composed her thoughts, exhaling softly, with subtle weariness, when she set the tumbler down._

_“When Steven was born, we immediately found that he had what was more or less a minor birth defect—unilateral renal dysplasia.” And since those weren’t necessarily easily accessible words to a twelve-year old, even a precocious one, Mom took care to elaborate. “That’s when one of the kidneys is somehow malformed during the developmental stages.”_

_“And that… developed into kidney failure?”_

_She could see the pieces coming together now._

_The contradiction not so contradictory anymore._

_The oxymoron resolved._

_The equation having a logical, rational end._

_Rose Quartz, despite her best intentions, passed on her bodily demons to Steven._

_Case closed._

_“Not exactly,” Mom frowned, and Connie’s hypothesis crumbled into her lap._

“Through rain, through sleet, through heat, through hell, Archimedes guarded Lisa’s vulnerable body as the fever ran its course through her small body in alternating chills and sweat. Even when night drew itself around them in curtains made of sky velvet and stars, the falcon retained his faithful watch. He was her familiar, her friend, and he would never leave her… not even if she left him.” She closed the book with a resounding thud. “And that, my friend, was Chapter Four.”

Steven’s chin suddenly lifted from where it had been resting on M.C. Bear Bear’s crumpled head.

“What?! You can’t just stop there!”

“No, Steven—you don’t understand,” she laughed warmly. “I _have_ to. Chapter Five leaves me incredibly tender, and I have to emotionally prepare myself for it.”

“You’re just taunting me now,” he accused, a pout beginning to form on his lips.

“Smart boy! I so totally am."

_“Kids with dysplasia in one kidney typically grow up without any noticeable decreases in health or kidney function, so Dr. Howard and I didn’t particularly worry about it too much. Hell, we were just relieved that nothing worse had manifested in his little body.”_

“Un-fair,” Steven whined, drawing the word out into the two needling syllables. “I wouldn’t do this to _you_.”

Connie had gleaned enough about Steven’s personality in the short time they had known to each other to agree with him.

“No, you wouldn’t,” she replied thoughtfully, placing her index finger on her lower lip. “You’re too kind, but more importantly still, you have very little impulse control!”

“Hey!” He laughed indignantly.

“Not that that’s a bad thing per say,” she continued pointedly, arching an eyebrow at him, “but it’ll do you some good to wait until the next time. To feel the suspense build up in you until it reaches a breaking point! To stew and simmer in these characters until I relieve you of the heat.”

She leaned forward out of her chair and booped him lightly on the nose.

She’d make a fine reader out of him yet.

“So…” Steven began tentatively once Connie withdrew. She was leaning over now, replacing the thick book in her bag. Her slender fingers paused on the clasp, and she pricked her ears, equal parts curious and hesitant to hear what he was obviously struggling to say. “So there’s definitely going to be…. there’s definitely going to be a next time?”

_“But Steven… Steven defied those favorable odds—every statistic and report that said he was going to make it through life without any kidney related complications. When he started to undergo puberty about a year ago, the natural changes in his body caused him to develop a severe urinary tract infection that injured his functional kidney.”_

_“I did everything I could to try and clear the infection up, but the damage was irreversible. Eight months ago, I diagnosed him with chronic kidney disease and put him on the transplant waiting list.”_

_“So it was random,” Connie whispered to herself, staring at the hands she had splayed on her lap. She clenched and unclenched them. “It was just chance.”_

_“What was that?” Mom asked, having heard but not understood her._

_“So we’re waiting,” she amended herself quickly._

_“Or, well,_ **_I’m_ ** _waiting,” Priyanka said pointedly. “While we’re on the subject, there's something I wanted to talk to you about, Connie.”_

She did not hesitate.

“Definitely!” she assured him. Concise. Clear. Genuine. “It’d be cruel to leave you on a cliffhanger, wouldn’t it?”

But he wasn’t entirely convinced because he clutched M.C. Bear Bear tightly to his chest and asked, “I mean, are you sure? Not that I don’t doubt you or anything, but you don’t have to spend your summer in a hospital, you know.”

He looked away, his dark eyes clouding, impenetrable.

“I wouldn’t want that.”

_“Steven is a special case to me, but that doesn’t mean that he has to be a special case for you, honey.” She was being uncharacteristically gentle, vulnerable, and Connie nearly recoiled against her seatbelt._

_“What do you mean, Mom?”_

_“I mean that just as his mother was, Steven is liable to be plagued with numerous complications before all of this is, uh, over,” Mom paused, her voice stumbling over itself for the first time since the conversation had begun. “…one way or the other.”_

_It was life or death, she was saying._

_And Steven was teetering on the edge between the two extremes._

_“I know you two get along well, and I’m glad for it,” she said softly, “but, Connie, I don’t want you to get hurt._

_They were in the heart of Empire City now, slinking past skyscrapers and pedestrians and street vendors who were setting out their daily wares in preparation for the long day._

_There was a drawn out silence in the car as Connie pieced her words together, thought by determined thought._

_Outside the window, she caught a glimpse of the towering D.E. building, which was famous for its jagged geometry and how its glass windows were tinted gold._

_“I appreciate that, Mom—I do, but I’m afraid that I admittedly look at it a little differently than you do.”_

_A sharply raised eyebrow. “Oh?”_

_“Steven’s not beholden to statistics, I guess—to probability. You said as much when you told me that he developed a disease that not many kids his age ever get in their lifetimes. So sure, probability’s telling me that I may get hurt, or that Steven might_ **_be_ ** _hurt a thousand times over before he gets a kidney… but I don’t want to think of him in terms of numbers, Mom, not when those numbers just may be wrong.”_

_Connie smiled sadly._

_“I want to be his friend.”_

Connie shook her head fervently and grabbed Steven’s closest hand. He was cold and soft.

A contradiction.

A puzzle.

An unsolved equation.

Mom’s stories helped, but there was so much more she had left to discover about this boy.

So much more to learn.

From him.

Maybe even  _for_ him.

“I want to be part of your world, Steven.” Her grip tightened on his hand, perhaps to emphasize the sincerity of her claim. “I want to be part of your universe.”

The edges of Steven’s pale mouth wobbled into a smile.

_They pulled into the staff parking lot of the hospital and before Connie could unlatch her seatbelt, Mom leaned over the console and pulled her into a hug that was fierce and exacting and warm all at the same time._

_After the initial surprise wore off, she leaned into the moment, leaned into the crook of her mother’s shoulder and closed her eyes against the dawning sun._

_“I love you, Connie.”_

_Connie dug her fingers into her mother’s lab coat in response._

__


	5. Blue (II)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there, guys! Sorry for the late update. It's been a crazy week, but happily enough, it's about to get much crazier.
> 
>  **01.** On Thursday, I'll be leaving on a cruise to the Bahamas! (Hence, Greg's dream in Chapter 2, lol.) I'm very excited, but I'm also a little sad because I'm going to have to leave my laptop behind. Unfortunately, it'll be awhile until I can get the next chapter out. Sorry about that, but I'll be sure to be brainstorming while I'm waxing poetic about Caribbean sunsets.
> 
>  **02.** This chapter was hard for me to write because I knew there'd be a lot of pathos in it. Blue viscerally and laboriously struggles with her grief in an immobilizing way. I wanted to give her feelings justice, but I also wanted to ensure that I balanced some of the heaviness with humor or even happiness. I do hope I was able to strike that balance. _That being said, though, there is a brief reference to attempted rape in this chapter, so if that is a trigger for you, please, please be cautious before reading._
> 
>  **03.** If you catch the reference in Pink's middle name, please let me know so we can be best friends. 
> 
> **04.** I wanted to let you guys know that my tumblr username is mimik-u. I'd love to take a few Diamond-related/Bellow Diamond prompts over there, maybe do a couple of paragraphs each. (A little reparation for the fact that I have no earthly clue when the next chapter of "FC" is coming out, lolol.)
> 
>  **05.** And, as always, thank you guys for your love and support for this fic.
> 
>  **P.S.** Yellow sketch at the bottom! Updated as of 3-2-19.

**i.**

It was after midnight, and the heavy hand of her sleeping pill pressed itself over her eyes and bid her to sleep—which it was supposed to do, of course, but the sensation was still unpleasant all the same. She tossed in the spacious bed, and she moaned, the sound pitiful and ghostly in a room that echoed back its own awful emptiness. (A master bedroom without both of its masters could never quite be full.) The sensation of being smothered weakened her entire body, wringing it from the inside out, until finally, inevitably, she went limp.

Sleep did not _come_ to Blue Diamond.

It dragged her into its dark depths after she summoned it with a swallow.

She did not like to sleep.

She was scared to dream.

_A pink lion cub sat on its haunches before her, dark within the tall shadow she cast._

_Its proud head tilted haughtily into the air._

_Iron teeth gleaming._

_Its forehead depressed into an indignant frown._

_“Mother—”_

_“I said no, Pink!” The new voice, harsh and exacting and edged with exasperation, materialized into a person who was all those things and more. Yellow, her spiky blonde hair swept to the side with signature impeccability. Yellow, wearing a black suit vest and a white button-down shirt, her dress pants ending in a pair of forbidding high heels that gave her a few inches over Blue. Yellow, her leathery hands shoved deep into her pockets in a telltale warning sign of rage._

_Yellow, who loved the best way she knew how._

_(It involved a lot of yelling.)_

_“I wasn’t asking for your permission,” the lion snarled, rising to her paws. Claws unsheathed. Fur bristling. “I’m twenty-one years old, dammit, and I don’t have to do that anymore.”_

_Yellow’s head reared back in an ugly laugh. “You’re twenty-one, eh? Then why are you acting like you’re ten?” Her expression narrowed into a fine sneer. “You want to go to a party? Sure, knock yourself out—but not dressed like this and certainly not to some oh-so-highly-reputable establishment such as a dirty bar on 9th Avenue.”_

_“It’s Halloween! It’s a costume!”_

_“Oh, don’t tell me—are you costuming as a half-naked version of yourself?”_

_“I’m a lion, thank you very much!”_

_“You’re dressed like a slu—“_

_“Pink.” Blue’s own voice, quiet and soft and cold, seemed distant to her, as though it had been sieved of all its solidity, its thereness. The bickering stopped long enough for cub and mama bear alike to snap her an attentive look. She’d always had a way of commanding a room._

_“Yes, Mom?” The cub had beautiful brown eyes, big and warm and full of stars. Her hackles were still raised, but there was something made of the gentler stuff in the way she addressed Blue. Rain in the midst of hail._

**_Mom_ ** _, she had said tenderly, and Blue… Blue betrayed her._

_She bent down, the long ends of her dress pooling like liquid on the floor._

_And reached out, placed a gentle hand under the lion’s small chin._

_But she wasn’t a lion anymore._

_She was Pink Iphigenia Diamond, and she had painted her small nose black, had given herself crooked whiskers. The black struck through the freckles scattered like stars across her red cheeks._

_“Pink,” she said, all firmness, because the hand under Pink’s chin was a tiny softness,“I’m going to have to agree with your mother. You’re still very young to be hitting a bar so casually, especially one that’s not on the higher end of the city. My word is final.”_

_In the pause, only seconds long but it felt like an eternity, Pink’s delicate features modeled hurt and then disbelief, and finally, anger, cruel and discordant, bent her brow._

_Pink wrenched away from Blue’s hand, wrenched away from Blue, and whispered the last words she would ever address to her mother._

_“You’ll never let me grow up, will you?”_

Blue did not wake with a start.

Nor did she wake with a scream.

She woke because a gentle thumb was trailing itself across her cheek, wiping her warm tears away.

Even in the darkness, Yellow Diamond cut a striking figure.

“Yellow?” Her voice tender with disbelief.

Because this was new.

And yet, achingly familiar.

They did not share a room anymore.

Blue’s hip problems.

The natural rift that existed between them.

Once upon a time, there had been no groove between them left unexplored.

“You were crying in your sleep,” she said gruffly and withdrew her thumb, pulled her arms tightly against her chest. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

The phantom of her touch lingered on Blue’s face.

She found that she missed it.

“I am… thank you.” Yellow moved a little to the left, and the moonlight slanting in from the crack in the curtains illuminated the harsh lines underscoring her eyes, the pinched expression between them. “Just a bad dream.”

“Of her?” The question was dull, lifeless, the answer already known to both of them.

“Who else?” The reply wasn’t a challenge—just another line in the sad, little tragedy the two of them played out together every so often.

Then silence.

End scene.

There was nothing left to say.

Yellow moved towards the door without another word.

Placed a hand on the knob.

Hesitated.

The tinny click of the disturbed handle just loud enough to cut through all the heaviness in the room.

“Blue?” Her voice tender with uncertainty.

Because this was new.

And yet, achingly familiar.

Once upon a time, Yellow would wrap her arm around Blue’s curving waist, and they would talk and talk well into the night, well into the gray light of morning.

About work.

About Pink.

About nothing and everything all at the same time.

“Yes, Yellow?”

Yellow grappled for her words in the darkness, a rarity for _this_ woman whose sentences often marched like soldiers in a line.

“I was… curious,” she finally said. “The chef said that you had ordered something special for tomorrow. Any particular plans?”

Oh, right.

The tea and cakes.

Steven Universe was coming over tomorrow.

The boy from the cemetery.

The boy with the flower and the awful disease and that unrelenting smile.

She glanced over to her nightstand, and the pink bloom, now in the throes of wilting, winked back at her.

“Yes…” She drew out her answer slowly, carefully—honey dripping from a comb. “I’m having company tomorrow… is that okay?

A long silence—charged, expectant.

Yellow’s grip on the doorknob must have tightened because there was a rattle, a click.

“Of course it is,” she whispered hoarsely.

And then the door open and closed.

_Exeunt Yellow._

**ii.**

Morning, gray and heavy, rumbling with quiet thunder. It was going to rain, or maybe it had _already_ rained and Blue was waking up to the vestiges of a storm.

Fighting against the dregs of her sleeping pill, she turned her head to the side and peeked at the red number on the alarm clock.

11:04.

A quarter of the day already gone by.

Perhaps it would be better for her to just stay in bed.

Sleep. Stare up at the ceiling fan. Count its endless whirls. Decay just a little bit more, a few lost hours at a time.

But no—she spotted the pink flower again—she couldn’t do that today. A wistful sigh brushed her lips, fell listlessly onto the bed. She had company.

So pleased on the day they had arranged the visit, now Blue rather wished she’d never acquiesced at all. She laid in bed until 11:30, withered hands folded delicately on top of her sheets. Watched the ceiling fan. Counted its endless whirls.

But necessity was a nagging creature, and it niggled impatiently at the back of her mind until she finally pushed herself up into a sitting position. Her bad hip protested at the change in posture, and for another five minutes, she sat completely still, caressing the tender spot as gently as she could, her blue eyes closed against the sharp swell of pain. The doctor had said that she should move more, and Blue had politely agreed before proceeding to do just the opposite.

In the heat of a particularly bad argument, Yellow had called her the architect of her own despair.

And Blue had politely agreed before continuing to build her own pyre.

Grief was a cycle, and she could not escape its vicious turns.

(Sometimes, when the night was silent and the cold stars were forbidding, she wondered if she even wanted to.)

She stood up when she thought she could manage it—the clock said it was 11:42—leveraged her weight on her nearby cane, and shuffled towards the bathroom. Flipped the light switch. Found a yellow sticky note and her pillbox waiting for her on the counter.

_Blue,_

Yellow’s squared handwriting had a utilitarian quality to it, as though her penmanship was just another tool she could use to get ahead.

_After you eat, please take all of your medicine._

_You forgot the painkiller yesterday._

_I imagine you’re feeling that absence today._

_Yellow_

It was like shitty poetry—hard to read and even tougher to swallow. Blue crumpled the paper into an incomprehensible ball and tossed it lightly into the wastebasket, harrumphing softly in the mirror as a pair of indignant eyes stared back at her. Yellow’s conclusion, so smug, so demanding, possessed a logical inconsistency.

A flaw.

If the pillbox was as strictly regimented as Yellow so decisively maintained it to be, then it would be reasonable, nay, even _realistic_ to conclude that Blue saw _each_ and _every_ pill bunkered together in the Thursday slot.

Therefore, if all but one damn pill had been left behind, the _logical_ conclusion would have been that Blue had chosen to abstain from taking it herself, had made a conscious decision as a fifty-five year old woman to _not_ let the pill work its way through her body.

Because it made her dizzy at times.

Because it muddled a mind that required no assistance in being muddled.

But Yellow?

Yellow didn’t seem to think her capable enough to make a judgment call about her own body.

 _Oh, God,_ how that woman infuriated her sometimes.

She violently pushed the pillbox away from her, and it slid into the wall with a pitiful clank. She wouldn’t take a single pill today; that’d show her.

But then she took a deep, steadying breath.

Reconsidered.

Thought of the boy with the pink flower.

Thought of Yellow’s soft touch in the darkness.

Today wasn’t about her.

**iii.**

She lost another twenty minutes to the shower, her forehead sunk against the cool, white tiles as she thought of Pink.

Not for any particular reason. Not because it was any particular day.

She was just always thinking about Pink.

_“You’ll never let me grow up, will you?”_

The steaming water, a hard cascade, broke over her head, and Blue broke, too, tall fingers scraping down the walls. Pink’s last words had been the end of her nightmare, but they played like a scratched record across the table of her mind—repeating, unceasing.

Her eyes joined the stream of the shower.

_She stalked between her mothers, taking especial care to knock into both of them. Blue, quite simply, shattered; she grabbed onto Yellow’s steady arm to keep from falling._

_“Pink—“ Yellow began thunderously, but their daughter effectively shut her up with a rude hand gesture. Her pink leotard and the lion’s tail attached to it disappeared through the arching hallway. A door slammed. A scream like a hissing kettle ensued._

_Whether it was from Yellow or from Pink, maybe even both, Blue couldn’t quite differentiate in the frenzied haze of her mind._

_Yellow, furious and forlorn and far from being as put together as her stiff posture suggested, enveloped her tightly._

_Her pointed chin scraping the top of her head._

_Fingernails digging sharply into the fabric of her dress._

She dragged shaking fingers through her long hair and tried to stir up the suds of shampoo, but her focus was in danger of dissipating completely. The floor beneath her feet swayed and blurred. The hot water diluted her senses, made her dizzy, and she had just enough energy to knob the water off before she sank to the ground, her head falling in-between her legs.

_“Were we too harsh?” Blue whispered, the question muffled against Yellow’s clothes. She smelled like sandalwood and leather and the constant rounds of coffee she had at work. Her cracked lips trailed down Blue’s forehead, tender at first and then more insistent. As though she was working something out in the tiny gestures, as though she needed the space between them to completely disappear._

_“No, dammit,” Yellow growled, stopping long enough to reply. “We were just harsh_ **_enough._ ** _We made the right call. That place would have chewed her up and spit her right back out. Let her simmer! Let her pout… I prefer that to fearing for her safety.”_

_“She was so upset.” Blue raised her head, and Yellow’s lips followed, drew themselves down her neckline, slowly, thoroughly, halting and lingering at her sharp collarbone. “I want to apologize. I want to make things right.”_

_Yellow withdrew her head and shook it, ran tired fingers through her sharp hairline. “In the morning. Her temper tantrum should have subsided by then anyway.”_

_“In the morning,” Blue agreed and extended her hand._

_Yellow enfolded it into her own._

_“Let’s go get ready for bed, you old hag.”_

_“If I’m old,” Blue arched an eyebrow, “then you simply must be prehistoric, a relic of time immemorial.”_

_“Are you calling me a fossil?”_

_Their intertwined hands swung between them._

_“Indeed.”_

_They passed Pink’s room on the way to their own, and yellow light speared from under the closed door._

_She was home, safe, sound._

Time marched on, and it would have marched on without her had necessity not saved the day again. She lifted her chin on her knobby knees and remembered Steven. She wrung her dripping hair with both of her hands and told herself that she had to stand.

There was a disconnect between when she said it and how long it took for her to actually accomplish it, but eventually, she was on her feet again, reaching for a towel.

Ugly victories were still victories.

She wrapped the cloth around her body, stepped out onto the shower mat, and inhaled the cold, biting air.

_She was clever and careful; she snuck out after Blue and Yellow had gone to sleep._

_That was the only thing they could surmise when a police officer rang their doorbell at 2:38 AM and told them that their daughter was dead._

_That she’d stopped a gang of guys from violating a girl, and they had turned on her instead._

_That it all went down at a dirty bar on 9th Avenue._

_He was very sorry for their loss._

_Would they like to come with him?_

_Blue couldn’t remember if they went with him or not; everything from then was a darkness, occasionally pierced through by the echoes of her own screams._

She hadn’t actually worn a bra in… well… she couldn’t precisely remember when.

Robes and zero company and nightgowns and whole days spent in bed didn’t necessarily require her to endure the torture traps.

But today… today was different, and it required her to dress like it; she stood naked in front of her open wardrobe, frowned slightly, and tried to visualize herself in actual clothes.

She’d worn a lot of fancy dresses and pencil skirts a long time ago.

She’d been the strict and exacting headmistress of a private Catholic institution, and she had dressed the part well.

But looking at those old clothes now, she felt as distant to them as she did the moon. She’d worn them when she was Blue, the headmistress.

Blue, the leader.

They connected to no part of her life now.

But time was not a commodity for her; she had let too much of it slip by already.

Undergarments. (The bra was, as she remembered it to be, horrible.)

And a navy blue sweater dress that fit her body tightly at the curve of her hips but had oversized sleeves that drowned her frail arms.

She threw a quick glance at the mirror in the wardrobe’s door.

Hollowed eyes.

Quivering fingers.

Lank hair that dripped.

And a dress that just didn’t fit like it used to.

Blue, the mourner.

If she was even still Blue Diamond at all.

**iv.**

12:45.

Blue twisted her damp hair into a braid, let it fall over her shoulder. (It was an easier alternative to drying her long tresses and combing out all the tangles and straightening the deadened ends.)

She crossed and uncrossed her legs, only to cross them again.

Closed her eyes and counted to twenty but lost track around eleven.

12:49.

The couch proved to be too firm for her hip. She limped to the recliner and wished Livia, one of their two maids, was around to retrieve her ice pack.

But she had sent all of the attendants out of the living room earlier.

They’d all been… _emotional,_ to say the least, at the sight of Blue in a dress.

Blue moving around the suite.

Blue.

She twisted the simple gold wedding band on her finger as a means of calming herself; her nerves were fragile, agitated, and she smiled bitterly to herself to imagine Yellow taking her blood pressure at this exact moment.

12:54.

She should have never consented to this.

It was too soon.

It’d only been four years, and it was all too soon, and she was still in mourning, and how could she mourn properly if she was entertaining guests and—

The doorbell pealed, a high and lovely sound. (They’d changed it after _that_ night. When the police officer had rung the bell, the sound was low and grave.)

12:55.

Blue didn’t move, frozen in time and place and mind and body.

She had a choice to make.

She had the potential to do nothing.

The bell chimed again.

12:57.

Livia’s head peeped out of the door leading into her own room; even though her silvery bangs fell into her eyes, she implored her master with a look all the same.

“Shall I…?”

But Blue shook her head as the bell pealed once more.

12:58.

She limped over to the door as steadily as cane and leg could go.

Placed a hand on the knob.

Hesitated.

Imparting no noise when she did.

(Yellow had hesitated, too, but whereas she had had something to say, Blue wasn’t quite sure that she _wanted_ to say anything at all. Wasn’t it too soon? Wasn’t this all moving so fast? Was she betraying Pink’s memory? Was she moving on? No, definitely not, but even still—)

She could hear voices behind the door.

“One more minute, Ste-man, and I’m leaving.” A scratchy voice, exasperated and yet playful. Surely this was one of Steven’s female guardians. As to which one, though, Blue couldn’t exactly say; she’d been rather overwhelmed by them that day at the cemetery.

“Ameeeethyst, please wait,” a new voice pleaded, and Blue knew it at once. It was the boy with the flower. It was Steven. “Give her a minute! We’re here early, and maybe she can’t hear us!”

He barely knew her, and he was sticking up for her.

What could Blue’s heart do but melt?

“Uh-huh,” Amethyst said, unconvinced.

1:01.

Blue Diamond opened the door and proved Amethyst quite wrong.

“Hello, Steven,” she smiled, slow and uncertain, face tight with the foreign expression.

Steven Universe grinned up at her and did not think twice about doing so.

**v.**

They took their tea and cakes on the balcony. Large, wooden deck, the dark boards smooth and symmetrical as they ran from the sliding glass doors to the shiny glass railings that safely enclosed the balcony from the sky. A sleek, white overhang spared them from the hot June sun, which had finally begun to peek out after all of the morning rain. Steven sat in one plush armchair and Blue occupied the other, the small table between them a host to their snacks.

When Steven picked up his mug of tea, Blue noticed that a few of the bruises that had been so prominent on his arm a few days ago had begun to turn yellow with age and fading.

She found that she was glad to see that, found that she was even relieved.

(What she dared not call herself, though, was _invested_.)

“This is a beautiful view,” Steven murmured, almost to himself, but then he slid a shy glance at Blue.

“It is,” she replied softy and returned his gaze just as modestly. “Yellow wanted to build me a mansion, but I told her that I wanted a tower. I wanted to look out and see the buildings scrape the stars and the clouds and the sky.”

They broke eye contact then, looked out at the vista unfurling before them. Art. Beauty. Nature incomparable. Tall spires winding up into the billowing clouds with lazy ambition. The bay in the east gray and languid, lapping at the edges of the city with all the familiarity of an old friend. The crowns of buildings composing a black and blue and steel horizon. And the sky was the color of Caribbean waters, light and lovely, sea green and cerulean and alice blue. Intonations upon intonations bleeding into each other in extraordinary ways.

The silence that existed between them was comfortable, peaceful.

Steven watched the sky, and more often than not, she watched _him_.

The dark circles under his eyes mirrored her own, but where she wore hers like scars, his seemed to be natural extensions of his smile.

“Have your treatments gone well?” She asked, but even _as_ she asked, she wasn’t sure what exactly she was asking. Did she mean for him to answer literally? Did she want him to tell her more? More about himself? More about his life? She had invited this intimacy, and now that it was sitting next to her eating little chocolate cakes, she didn’t know how to proceed.

“Yeah, same old, same old,” he laughed lightly, lowering one of the half-eaten pastries from his mouth. “I mean, I think they’re going well, but I suppose the adults probably wouldn’t tell me even if they weren’t.”

Oh, that was something.

Blue raised a thin eyebrow.

“Are they not forthcoming with you?”

But she had to wait for a response because the child had stuffed the remnant of cake in his mouth and was now chewing voraciously. He held up his index finger with goofy urgency, and she couldn't help but smile. He was an exceptionally cute boy—sweet and playful and funny.

He reminded her of…

 _No_ , she told herself sharply. She wouldn’t go there.

That painful warmth bloomed across her cheeks all the same.

“I suppose not,” he gasped out as soon as he’d swallowed his last bite. With a tilt of her head, she prodded him to take a sip of tea before he continued. “They’re all trying to protect me, you see. Keep my days a little happier, a little more carefree.”

Steven frowned slightly, and the expression was strangely discordant with everything Blue had surmised about him.

“But, uh, not to be disrespectful or anything, I really don’t think it’s the best way to go about it, you know?” Exasperation crept into his voice. “I mean, I want to know what I’m up against! I want to be able to know what monsters I’m gonna have to beat if I’m gonna make it out of this!”

“And I _want_ to make it out this,” he concluded softly, brown eyes scrutinizing his bruised arm. “I want to make it out alive. So, like, I wish the adults would give me the tools I need to, well, do that.”

 _He’s doing it again,_ Blue thought, a thick lump rising up the column of her throat.

He was touching her heart.

A dying boy who wanted nothing more than to live.

And a very much alive woman who would rather be dead.

What a pair the two of them made.

“Oh, golly, I just kind of unloaded on you,” Steven said sheepishly. “Sorry about that. How about you? How are you doing, Blue?”

He scraped his hand against the back of his neck, smiled up at her earnestly.

She could tell him anything in the world right now, and he would listen.

And maybe if he couldn’t completely understand, the brightness in his features told her that he’d at least try to.

Even _that_ was something not many people chose to do in this world.

“I’m sad,” Blue admitted, and the weight of the admission bothered her sternum, upset her quiet voice, “but talking to you makes me a little less sad. In fact, Steven Universe, you’re doing well to make me brave.”

“No!” He shook his head in bewilderment. “I can’t take credit for that! I think you’re brave just being here, just being you!”

She smiled sadly and reached across the table, brushed a stray curl from his pale cheek.

“Oh, my boy, it’s been a very long time since I’ve been me… and yet, here you are, completely, unrepentantly you.”

“You’re very kind,” Steven whispered softly.

“And you, Steven, are beautiful.”

When they parted later that evening, Steven wrapped his arms around Blue’s midsection. He was short, tiny, and he only came up to her waist.

She released her cane in surprise.

Because this was new.

And yet, achingly familiar.

Once upon a time, Pink had done the very same.

Her two hands came to rest upon his back as tears began to flow down her cheeks, unbidden and sad and not _entirely_ sad all at the same.

“Until next time, Blue.”

He squeezed tightly. His arms couldn’t even encircle her body.

“Until next time, Steven.”


	6. Yellow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there, folks! I'm back from the Bahamas, which were just as lovely and beautiful as I've always imagined. Thank you so much for your well wishes and the comments you left while I was gone; they were very nice welcome home presents. c:
> 
> A couple of notes before I let you go:
> 
> 01\. I was frickin' reading through the last chapter of "FC", and I realized that I missed the potential to give Blue **a diamond ring.** Wth? I don't deserve to be writing this fic.  
>  02\. That being said, I had such a fun time writing this chapter. It was dark, and I often find that delicious material to work with... but, for your sakes and mine, I plan to ease up next chapter and indulge in a little more levity.  
> 03\. On a more serious note, though, this chapter deals with sensitive material concerning suicidal ideation, and if that is something that hits close to home for you, please be careful if you choose to read this chapter.  
> 04\. Pink sketch at the bottom. Updated as of 3/2/19!
> 
> And without further ado, would you guys like to delve into Yellow Diamond's mind for awhile?

**_i._ **

It was after midnight, and the inventory report she needed to annotate remained untouched on her desk, shimmering hazily under the harsh incandescence of the lamp. Readers perched on the bridge of her nose, shoulders squared in her high-back chair, red pen loaded between the tips of her well-manicured fingers, Yellow Diamond was the very image of productive behavior.

But images were deceiving, and the report could have been a pamphlet on diverticulitis for all of the attention she was sparing its way.

Her beady eyes had very recently become obsessed with the minute crack in the doorway.

That led out from her study into the hall.

Because directly across from the study was the master bedroom.

The door closed but not especially soundproof.

And yet, Yellow, strain though she did, could hear no sound.

No soft weeping incompletely muffled by a pillow.

No creaking mattress that was always being restlessly tossed and turned in.

Nothing.

None of it.

Which _should_ have come as an intense relief to her.

It meant that Blue was asleep, right? She had finally succumbed to her sleeping pill? Was at _peace_ for a short time in her persistently miserable existence?

Was not silence a sign of normalcy?

No—Yellow abruptly stood up from her chair and kicked it backwards in her haste to wrench open the door—not in this household it wasn’t. The ghosts of both the dead and the alive haunted the midnight hours of the Diamonds’ penthouse suite. Moan and cries. Memories that seized past the eyes and ears like phantasmagoric specters. Pink’s loud, lovely laugh. Blue’s quiet weeping trailing like fog through the night. Pink and the last time she had slammed her door. Blue and the way her hand fell against her chest these days, as though it injured her to even breathe.

Silence was not normalcy for them.

Silence was Pink sneaking out in the dead of the night.

Silence was death’s cruel touch closing her lips, her eyes, her casket.

Silence scared the living shit out of Yellow Diamond.

So she stormed from the study to the bedroom and made no attempt to still herself; she would not be complicit in this dangerous calm.

She would rage, rage against the dying of the light.

She’d be damned if she went gently into that good night.

She pushed the door open forcibly, and the soft golden light from the hallway seeped ahead of her, illuminating a triangular pathway to the huge bed in the center of the room. For the second time in two nights, Yellow inhaled deeply and entered her own bedroom, tonight hesitant and frenzied, where last night she had at least known what what awaited for her in the twisted sheets. A grieving mother. A familiar sadness—simple, subtle, merciless.

Foot over foot in the plush carpet, she approached the left side of the bed where she knew Blue _wouldn’t_ be. On the right side, she was sprawled with her back towards Yellow, one limp hand trailing towards the headboard, all but her head and shoulders swathed in blankets, moonlight from the nearby window paling what little was exposed of her skin. She wasn’t moving.

Yellow lifted one silk enclosed knee on the bed.

And then the other.

Extended a grasping, reaching, wretched hand.

And then closed it.

Withdrew.

Suddenly nauseous.

The hand she took back now pinching the bridge of her sharp nose.

Now covering her thin mouth.

She couldn’t do this—not again.

Not with _her_.

 _Please, God_ , she thought, not particularly a religious woman but a desperate one. _Not tonight._

But then Blue’s slender shoulders moved in the slow, heavy breath of deep sleep, and Yellow’s world righted itself once more. She exhaled harshly, twisted her fingers in the cold sheets beneath her, and then remembered herself. Untangled them. Smoothed the sheets and left no trace of her nightly visit behind.

Then she went to the bathroom and counted every single pill her wife owned, checked for inconsistencies and rechecked.

(She had gotten the note, it seemed. Every pill in the Friday partition of the pillbox had been dutifully taken, all else left untouched.)

Blue’s light snores drifted in from the open door.

**_ii._ **

Her wife had had a visitor today, a little boy, Poppy had eagerly told her while she was bringing Yellow her evening coffee. The slight maid bustled around the study and made motions at examining the bookshelves for dust, but it was clear that she was more intent on gauging her employer’s face for her reaction.

“And this little boy”—Yellow took a sip of the black coffee to anchor her troubled thoughts, careful, always careful, to keep her features more or less neutral—“he was the person Blue had in mind when she requested something of the chef?”

Poppy nodded enthusiastically, blonde hair bobbing. “Yes, ma’am. They had tea and cakes out on the balcony.”

Another taste of coffee; she swirled the bitter substance through her teeth for a few seconds before swallowing.

“Can you tell me any more?” Oh, she was curious, dreadfully so, but she maintained a sense of studied disinterest as she asked, centering her entire facade around the china coffee cup carefully balanced between the delicate tangle of her fingers.

Another sip, her golden eyes staring evenly at the maid from across the white rim. Poppy visibly deflated and dragged two glum fingers across a middle shelf, seemingly disappointed when her prints came away clean.

“No, ma’am” she replied grudgingly, obviously displeased that she couldn’t readily be useful to Yellow, “but Livia probably could. She was the only one of us Mrs. Diamond allowed to attend to them out on the balcony.”

“Bring her here for me if you would, Poppy.”

“Yes, ma’am,” came the sighing reply, and she promptly exited the room. A few minutes later, Livia, her blue skirt swaying around her willowy form as though by some invisible breeze, drifted in and curtsied, the familiar motion slow and graceful.

“Yes, Mrs. Diamond?”

“Blue had a visitor today,” she said immediately, affecting the accents of a boredom she did not feel. “Could you tell me about him?”

Whether Poppy had prepared her for the question (unlikely), or whether it was completely novel to her (more likely), Livia’s quiet features did not betray her one way or the other. She tilted her head thoughtfully, pressed a fingertip to her lips.

“He was on the younger side, Mrs. Diamond.” A reflective pause, fragile and delicate until Livia’s faint voice broke it once more. “Small. Dark-haired. And there was something… something sickly about him.”

She pulled her finger away, drew both hands in a ballerina’s clasp just below her stomach. “He was pale but bright. Funny, perhaps? I didn’t catch much of their conversation, ma’am… but he made her smile.”

Yellow’s coffee quivered. She stilled it by bringing the cup to her lips.

Took a long drag.

Darkly appreciative of the way the black substance scalded her throat.

“Anything else?” she asked hoarsely, and Livia began to shake her head, but then she stopped.

Reconsidered.

Misty blue eyes glancing towards the ceiling.

“If I’m not mistaken, ma’am… I think his name is Steven.”

Yellow leaned back in her chair, bringing her coffee with her.

Rolled the name around her head a couple of times to accrue perspective.

_Steven._

It wasn’t a familiar name.

But perhaps he was a former pupil of Blue’s?

Or something of the kind.

Frankly, it didn’t matter who he was, so much as it did why he was so important to Blue.

Who was he to be let in?

Who was he to give her cause to _smile_?

“And where is Blue now?” Yellow asked absently, the answer already known to her (the bed), but she was thorough, relentlessly so. With her free hand, she shuffled a few of the papers on her desk, glanced at the tops of them and did not see them, mind still wrapped in the mystery of this boy called… Steven.

Livia twisted her fingers in a nervous gesture.

“She’s on the balcony, Mrs. Diamond.”

Yellow nearly dropped her cup. A drop of black coffee teetered over the edge of the rim and onto one of the legs of her immaculate khakis. “What?”

Livia was clearly as unsettled by this change of routine as she was, her slender fingers turning pink with all of the wringing she was doing. “She returned to the balcony after Steven left… she said… she told me that she was…” And then the poor girl finally unfettered her fingers, let them fall slowly to her sides. “… she’s watching the sunset, ma’am.”

She didn’t wait to hear more.

Dismissing Livia with a nod, Yellow pushed past her and out of the study. Swung a sharp left. Entered their living area with its high, vaulting ceiling and its multitude of tall, glass windows and doors that afforded an unimpeded view of the balcony and the fading horizon beyond.

And there was Blue, just as Livia had said. (But neither Yellow nor Livia herself had believed the words she had spoken into existence.)

She was sitting in one of the armchairs.

Watching as the sun fell away from the indigo-orange sky.

The light danced on her silvery hair and made it gold.

**_iii._ **

It was just something they didn’t talk about.

Amongst all the _other_ things they didn’t talk about.

Blue wanted to… Blue wanted to _leave_.

Go.

Non-exist.

Two years ago, Yellow had found a crumpled up note in the bathroom wastebasket.

 _I’m sorry_ , it had said in Blue’s beautiful, slanting cursive, and then it had said it again. Over and over and over. _I’m sorry_ and _I’m sorry_ and _I’m sorry_.

_Love always, Blue._

Yellow had silently placed the failed missive on the nightstand next to her sleeping head and not-so-silently taken over Blue’s medicine distribution from there onwards. Had kept sharper eyes on the sharp objects they kept around the suite. Had removed any rope-like objects. Had locked the balcony up and hidden away the key. Had slept with one eye open for months and months and months, and then before she’d known it, a year had gone by, and their daughter was still dead and never coming back.

Those over-precautions had been the product of the worst days, and these _still_ were bad days, but at least they weren’t the worst.

And yet, Yellow had jumped at the silence, had made it a demon before it could even show its red eyes.

It was reflex.

It was a deep-rooted fear of hers that one day she’d come home from work and find her wife… _silent._

So paranoia, that caged, restless beast, kept Yellow up for the rest of the night, kept her chained to the study (which was just as well because that was where she preferred to be anyway). A watchful guard dog obsessed with its own tight leash. She made a few marks on the inventory report and stood up. Paced the wooden floors slowly and surely, her bare feet tracing the smooth grains as a means of calming her frayed nerves. Tried to read page thirty-two of the disgustingly huge packet, but when the words swam in front of her tired eyes, she cradled her head in her hands and tried to think past the headache pounding sharply at her temples.

The steel analog clock on the wall read that it was 4:46. A few hours more, and she would officially have to be up so they could go to Blue’s doctor appointment. Yellow closed her heavy eyes and rationalized that she had at least earned fourteen minutes worth of rest…

… but the silence of sleep, the darkness, the fear, the paranoia, the guilt, the horror, the nothingness, and the feeling of everything, of it all, wrangled themselves into more horrible shapes yet.

_Yellow pressed her ear to the bedroom door, mindful of the silly sign taped at its center._

_Pink’s Room._

_Only every character was in capital letters and scrawled in magenta crayon and the ‘P’ in ‘Pink was unfortunately backwards. But she was only four. She would learn. One day, she would even be_ **_brilliant_ ** _. The door only slightly muffled the quiet giggling coming from within, and warm, golden light spilled from all its edges._

_“Shh, shh, shh,” Blue whispered, but the amusement in her voice peeked through the admonition all the same. “Momma’s got to get up for work tomorrow.”_

_“Sorry, Mommy.”_

_“It’s okay, Pink, but if you stay still a little longer, I’ll tell you more of the story, okay?”_

_“O-k.” She drew the affirmation out into two sharp syllables, a little girl tasting words on her tongue and finding them delectable._

_“Good deal,” Blue rumbled, and even though a door barred the space between them, Yellow could almost see the soft smile that had surely lifted the corners of her mouth. “So where did I leave off?”_

_“The yello’ knight had just slayed the dragon!”_

_“Slain,” she corrected, a reflex from years of being teacher, but she continued all the same. “The yellow knight, striking and handsome in that peculiar gold armor, climbed over the body of the dragon and onto the steps that led up to highest tower of the castle. Up and up the knight went, breathing hard but smiling a smile that could have sharpened a knife, exhilarated by the climb and the victory and the promise of what awaited ahead. There was a trapdoor at the top of the ceiling. The knight slowly opened it and found—”_

_But Pink had heard this story before and knew it word for word (and loved it word for word). She cut across Blue and yelled with no little triumph, “THE PRINCESS!”_

_“Yes, yes! The princess,” Blue laughed, and both parties had seemingly forgotten their original intentions to keep quiet because their mirth slipped past the quiet restraints of a whisper and into something loud, beautiful, uncontrollable. “She was wrapped in blue silk and staring out of the tall window into the lands beyond—at places she had never gotten to see but had always wanted to go. Of course, she startled considerably when the yellow knight intruded upon her lonely haunt, and then she stiffened because her parents had always warned her against talking to strangers… but the yellow knight wasn’t a stranger, was she, dear one?”_

_“Nope,” Pink replied happily._

_“Who was she then?” Blue prodded playfully, and from the sound of the giggles than ensued, she had probably tickled the girl, maybe even blown a raspberry onto her little belly._

_“She was Momma!”_

_Yellow placed her hand on the knob, the slow beginnings of a smile beginning to transform her sharp features._

_“Indeed! It was Momma! She took off her helmet, and the princess gasped at the knight’s radiance. Her short hair was tousled by wind and helmet and fingers. Her golden eyes widened in a surprise that mirrored the princess’s own. To be perfectly honest, she looked like a deer in the headlights.”_

_“A vampire in the sun,” Pink added, always keen to add a fantastical bent to things from the real world (an extremely boring place in her smart opinion)._

_“Yes, very much so,” Blue said warmly. “The princess couldn’t help herself. She fell in love at first bewildered sight. And you know what, love?”_

_“What, Mommy?”_

_“So did she.”_

_Yellow twisted the knob._

_She opened the trapdoor._

_And pushed._

_The golden light that had been so prominent from outside the door violently disappeared, snatched into a blackness that leaned against Yellow and began to smother her. She couldn’t see anymore. She couldn’t hear._

_Silence._

_“Blue? Pink?” she called hoarsely, stumbling into the darkness, into the room, but there was no reply._

_Blue’s soft voice extinguished._

_A gaping absence when Pink’s laugh had been._

_Silence._

_She felt her way to one of the corners of the four poster bed, wrapping a shaking hand around a thin, spiraling column. Even though it was surely only inches away from her face, she couldn’t even distinguish_ **_it_ ** _in all the blackness, but she used it as her guide all the same, dragging her clammy fingers down, down, down, until they reached the mattress. Pink’s soft quilt inlaid with stitched diamonds. Blue and pink and yellow and white._

_Silence._

_Yellow ran her hand along a vertical line of the gems and followed stiffly with her body._

_Surely they were just asleep._

_Yes, that had to be it._

_They couldn’t be…_

_Silence._

_Yellow tripped on a toy that Pink had neglected to put away—silly girl—and she stumbled gracelessly, catching herself on the tall lamp standing next to the bed._

_The lamp!_

_Her fingers fumbled upwards until she could turn the latch._

_Click._

_Golden light flooded the child’s room once more._

_Yellow wished she had never turned it on._

_Silence._

_Their cold bodies stretched out on the bed together, Blue’s lifeless nose pressed into Pink’s lifeless neck._

_Silence._

_Their cracked lips were flicked upwards in cruel, last smiles._

_Silence._

_Yellow began to scream._

**_iv._ **

She woke with a start, her head rising and then slamming against the cold desk it had apparently fallen upon on while she had been asleep. A quick, irritated glance at the clock told her that it was 7:02, approximately thirty-two minutes (and exactly eighteen seconds) later than she usually had the nerve to sleep. She twisted in her chair and consulted the view outside the window for a second opinion, only to find that dawn, a seven o’clock kind of dawn, had edged along the sky in orange and pink, and very faintly, gold.

Shit.

An expletive Yellow imagined described her life quite exactly right now.

With a quickness that was assuredly meant to make up for the now thirty-three minutes she had lost to idleness, she drew herself to her feet, arching her stiff back, stretching her arms high above her shoulders, and then reigning them in to scrub her bleary eyes. The inventory report still sat unfinished on her desk, the few markings she had made in the ass crack of night not enough to be satiate her internal demand for completion, but—she frowned, the jagged line of her mouth slanting like a steep incline—the report would have to wait. She had others things to do today—taking care of Blue expressly—and she had lost too much of her day to dreaming.

To nightmaring.

To silence.

Yellow shuddered involuntarily and snagged up her golden robe from the back of her chair, drew it tightly around her body as though to combat the way the awful dream had made her feel… but this particular chill had touched her from the inside out, and there was no covering up that with a piece of garment.

 _It was just a dream_ , she told herself sternly, crossing over to the door and attacking the handle as though it had personally offended her. The door jerked open with a bang she hadn’t intended to be so loud. (She didn’t want to wake up Blue.) _Just a dream._

She swung to the left, inhaling the rich perfume of her favorite Columbian coffee and—she stopped, assessing the different fragrance that intermingled sharply but pleasantly _with_ the coffee—the sweet redolence of earl grey.

Blue’s choice of tea.

Yellow frowned and prepared to snarl, hackles raised in the thundering footsteps she now took towards the kitchen. (They had an open floor plan; the living area was loosely connected to the kitchen by the means of an marbled countertop and a high archway.) Holly Agatha knew better than to make earl grey this early in the morning; Blue never got up until ten or so anyway—if that.

She turned the corner, a severe reprimand already on her tongue, only to stop short, her breath lost somewhere on its way to her throat.

It wasn’t Holly Agatha in the kitchen.

It was Blue Diamond, and though her robed back was turned to Yellow, the soft musical notes falling and rising from her lips could hardly be as concealed.

She was humming.

_Humming._

Something she hadn’t done in years upon aching years now.

She had always had a beautiful voice, though; it was low and lilting, slow and quiet, like water slipping down a stream.

She was stirring a cup, and the sounds she produced with both spoon and vocals alike seemed to swirl in the air with the thin spiral of steam.

“What’s the Use of Feeling Blue?” An old one, a favorite of hers, by the inimitable Patti LuPone.

She’d used to tell Yellow that she sounded a bit like her.

And Yellow would laugh and say that she was being absurd.

“Blue,” she whispered, all the while approaching the counter as though walking through water, through fog, through memories upon memories upon hazy memories.

Good ones.

And the recollection of them twisted her cold insides.

Her wife startled and turned on the spot, nearly dropping the cup and saucer she had been doctoring. Even when she steadied herself, her hands continued to tremble.

“Yellow! I, um—”

“You were humming,” Yellow said, awe and fear and tightness and tenderness all wrapped up in her hoarse voice. (How could one person feel so many emotions? And what was that person supposed to do with them now that she had them?)

“And preparing our drinks,” Blue murmured diffidently, walking over and extending the drink she barely kept from spilling across the countertop. Yellow accepted it only after a few more moments of amazed staring, and when she did, Blue immediately tucked her hands into the folds of her blue robe. “I was up early, and Holly Agatha wasn’t feeling well, so I…” She trailed off and looked away, a slight blush clambering up her cheeks like a softly cresting wave.

Yellow didn’t know what to say—or even if she _could_ say anything at all—so she took a sip of the coffee, revived by the strong bitterness that only barely avoided singeing her throat.

“Is it okay?” Blue asked, uncertain and lamblike, drawing back from the counter again. (She wasn’t using her cane, Yellow noticed, another ripple of shock coursing through her at the realization. The metal support was sitting in the corner of the kitchen, untouched, abandoned for the time being, glinting in the harsh white light illuminating all of the steel edges of the kitchen.)

“It’s fine,” Yellow croaked out, and because that sounded dull and lame in comparison to everything that was happening in and around Blue at the moment, she amended herself with uncharacteristic fervor. “I mean, it’s perfect. Thank you.”

The corner of Blue’s lined mouth tilted.

It was not quite a smile.

But it was not quite a frown either.

**_v._ **

They took their tea and coffee out on the balcony, Blue assuming the right armchair and Yellow the left, and somehow, there was both a rightness and a wrongness to these simple actions.

Because this was new.

And yet, achingly familiar.

Once upon a time, they had watched sunrise after sunrise with each other in these very chairs, hands intertwined to bridge the gap between them. The princess and the knight at peace at long last. No more dragons to slay nor impossible towers to climb. All the world at their powerful fingertips. All the world revolving around them and the love like gravity that held them together, that melded them to each other’s touch. And eventually, a little girl would join them, moving between their laps as she so pleased and calling them Mommy and Momma. She was a fairy. A mermaid. A pirate. A sorceress. A vampire. An elf. It depended on the day, on the way her otherworldly smile would shift to transform every delicate feature of her face. She would sigh at the sky and ask them why it glittered. She would bury herself in the crook of Blue’s neck or situate herself against Yellow’s hip and fit perfectly in both places.

The princess, the knight, and the girl.

They did not get their happily ever after.

They did not even get close.

“I’d forgotten how beautiful the view is,” Blue murmured, almost to herself, but then she slid a searching glance at Yellow. Her eyes were like diamonds, glimmering and shining and glowing in the rising light.

“It is,” Yellow replied gruffly and returned Blue’s gaze just as intensely, seeking something in those deep facets of blue. They shined, yes, but they were impenetrable, fortified by the years of sadness that had scratched away all of her sharp edges. (Sadness was a distinguishable creature, but it was not _knowable_ ; it did not easily beget interpretation, understanding. Yellow had looked into Blue’s eyes for four damn years and wondered what myriad of demons haunted her in all of her lovely hollows. She could guess—perhaps they even shared a few—but she would never fully know.) “You’re different today. Why?” She was direct, as she was wont to be, but a sudden reticence caused her to shift her eyes away from Blue all the same.

She stared out into the horizon, at the sun slowly ascending the sky like a crown, the memory of Blue’s hummed melody softly settling on her ears like a new and old friend.

Blue was silent for a long time. Her grip on one of the arms of her chair tightened a fraction of an inch.

“I… I don’t know, Yellow,” she murmured helplessly, the lilt of her voice beginning to rise with distress. “I just woke up and felt different today, I suppose.” Her withered hands came up to cover her face, and she held this position for a longer moment still. “Does it look wrong on me?” She whispered from behind her hands. “Because it feels that way sometimes… but sometimes, it feels so right, and I just don’t know.”

A single tear escaped the prison of her long fingers.

“I felt light this morning… and that makes me feel guilty.”

The melody in her ears stopped.

Something hot roared in its place.

“But you shouldn’t,” Yellow insisted quickly, fiercely, with a finality she hoped would stop the deluge before she even began. “It’s been four years, Blue. You deserve to move on. What’s more—you _should_ move on.”

“Oh, God.” Blue took her hands away from her face and leveled her an incredulous look, the quietness of her voice beginning to gather into icy edges. “Not this again.”

“But why not this again?” Yellow tried to keep her voice from rising, but it happened all the same. She sharply twisted her torso so that she could face Blue head on. “We dance around this conversation all the time and never get anywhere, and it’s getting ridiculous!

“Ridiculous?!” Blue pitched her head back and laughed, the sound high and painful, contorted in the throes of her accent. “What’s ridiculous is the fact that you think four years is enough to erase twenty-one years of having known Pink, having loved her. What’s ridiculous is that you think our daughter can be shoved away in a drawer with the rest of your useless items!”

The sting stuck.

A thorn right next to her sternum.

“You really think…” she began, horror and disgust and grief and anger tangling in the strained cords of her throat. (How could one person feel so many emotions?) “Do you really think I could be so callous, Blue?”

“You act like it sometimes,” came the cold, ready reply. She’d obviously been thinking about it, had obviously been thinking about it for a long time. Blue had assessed her and found her wanting.

Had found her heartless.

The fight leaked out of Yellow Diamond’s chest.

All that remained was an emptiness.

“I’m sorry,” she said wearily and turned away again, tilted her head towards a sky that was rapidly being overtaken by blue. It was so bright that it hurt. “I don’t want to fight anymore.”

Blue did not reply for a long moment, collecting herself with deep, steadying breaths.

Her hand fluttering just near her heart.

As though she was injured to even breathe.

(But that wasn’t it this time, was it? _Yellow_ had been the one to cause the injury. _Yellow_ had been the one to leave the bruise. Small. Precise. Painful.)

“I don’t want to fight either,” she finally whispered and opened her eyes. Her hand did not leave her heart. “I’m sorry as well.”

“For what?” Yellow almost asked sharply, but she tempered the edges of the question with a unsubtle cough. “You didn’t do anything. I started this one.”

Blue’s eyes had acquired a misty quality as they stared out into the horizon. “But it all circles back to me, does it not?” And mist turned into tears, and the tears streamed down her long face like rivers. “I’m so sorry, Yellow. For being like this. For being _me_.”

And before Blue Diamond could shatter on the balcony, Yellow stood and gathered the crumbling pieces into her arms, her chin resting on the crown of Blue’s head.

She had been light this morning.

Different.

And now she was not.

“I’m sorry, Blue.” She dug her fingers into the thin fabric of her robe. “I’m sorry.”

Silence.


	7. Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A brief meme about my writing style:**
> 
> Me, an anime guy: Is this fluff?  
> The butterfly: Moderate angst
> 
>  **01.** This chapter is actually going to be a two-parter! I was originally going to write it as a cohesive piece, but then I realized that if I did that, it'd be astronomically long—like, 8,000 words probably. Oi. I'm a longwinded writer, lol.  
>  **02.** Because I'm a perfectionist as all get out, I went back and revised a couple of the earlier chapters. (I believe I'm up to 'Texts'.) I mainly just double-checked grammar and tense issues, but Chapter 2 actually got a major upgrade. I added a couple of sentences to help with pacing, something which really bugged me in my read throughs of it.  
>  **03.** Beyond my neuroses, though, there's actually another reason why I went back and edited. This fic has meant so much to me for a multitude of reasons. It's the longest piece I've ever written, and more importantly, it's the first one that I've ever centered around a same sex couple. (I've worked hard in the past couple of years to overcome the prejudice that my conservative upbringing so forcefully instilled in me as a child, and this has been the biggest step towards that.) Because of those things, one of my plans for 'Flower Child' is to eventually print out a bound copy for myself as a keepsake of how much I've grown—as both a writer and as a person. I was curious, though—would anyone be interested in a copy when I print mine?
> 
> As always, thank you for the profusion of love and support you guys bring to this fic. Y'all are the best.

**01.**

Amethyst glanced to the left, then to the right, and found that there was a drag in traffic wide enough for her to ease out of the parking deck and into Empire City’s artificial night. (Of course, easing out for _Amethyst_ meant stamping on the gas pedal so hard it may have sunk to hell and back before she finally pulled back her foot, but details were devils, and she had no time for ‘em.) Empire City’s was an artificial night because it had all of the makings of _true_ night and none of its boundless, sovereign beauty. Starlight was exchanged for the harshly lit windows in tall buildings, and the dark sky was indistinguishable from the high rises that rose to greet it; whether the black canvas stretched out above them was steel or atmosphere, it was near impossible to tell. All nature had been snuffed out here, had been subjugated, had been crushed by a city obsessed with making its own kinds of lights and noise and monuments and… and Amethyst hated it.

Hated how the skyscrapers started to feel like prison walls after a couple of days.

Hated the lights that extinguished all the stars.

Hated this place and what it meant for _Steven_.

All the tubes and wires.

All the poking and prodding.

All of the hospital stays and hotel toilets he’s puked in.

Red pills, blue pills, one pill, too many pills.

When the heavy traffic forced her to come to a not altogether smooth stop, she slid an appraising glance his way, perhaps searching for a confirmation of her own feelings in _his_ face, but of course, she didn’t find that, and she never would have in a million years. He was _Steven_ , and a soft smile had drawn his mouth upwards as the brilliant incandescence of the city drew his dark eyes outwards.

 _It’s beautiful to him_ , she realized just as the cars in front of her began to move again and some asswipe in a Nissan Sentra honked the horn at her from behind. _Just like everything else._

Blue Diamond, for instance.

A woman who seemed more specter than person in the right light (which was, like, any kind of light).

Who wore blue bathrobes and matching slippers to cemeteries.

Whose drawn features bespoke a tragedy that no words could name.

Steven had seen the beauty in her, too, and when he had hugged her before they left, Blue Diamond smiled through the tears that rivered down her cheeks, and Amethyst had almost been able to perceive her as Steven did. 

As someone worth befriending.

But then her gaze had moved past Blue and Steven and into the opulent suite she and all her grief inhabited. The crystal chandelier that refracted shimmering threads across a living room that could have swallowed their entire house whole. The floor to ceiling glass windows. Gold trimmings on dark furniture. A damn maid waiting patiently for orders in the background.

Amethyst could allot sympathy for the woman, sure—a loss was a loss, and that was hard for anyone to come back from—but not too terribly much for God’s sake. Blue Diamond grieved in luxury, where Amethyst hadn’t even _had_ the luxury to get a week off after Rose’s death before she’d had to go back to work. Earn money. Pay bills. Get behind on bills because they had to figure out Rose’s medical costs and funeral expenses—not to mention they had to buy diapers and formulas for the newborn baby, and it had all been too much. _She_ had grieved during her fifteen-minute union breaks.

But again, Steven was Steven, and he wasn’t scarred in the same ways Amethyst was. Hadn’t grown up in foster care. Hadn’t been shunted around from home to home and learned that those weren’t really homes but daycare services where _she_ was the profit. The kid probably couldn’t even spell the word _cynicism_ if he even tried.

So he looked up at Blue Diamond, a woman _she_ could only see for her excesses, and called her a friend.

And he looked out into a city that felt cloistering to _her_ in all of its abundance and found something that pleased his eye.

“Steven, you’re a cool kid, you know that?” She asked suddenly, and she could feel his eyes turn upon her with the same kind of adoration he’d recently been flattering a particularly tall skyscraper with.

“I mean, _true_ ,” he grinned, a certain mischief in the exaggeration of his voice, “but any special reason you’re just now realizing it?”

Amethyst offered him a shrugged shoulder and half of a snort. “Nah, just cuz.” And then because she was curious and the car radio was broken and she hated the silence, added playfully, “So how was Blue Diamooooond? Did she cry the entire time? Pearl definitely did.”

“She did not!” Steven laughed, but there was something pained in the sound all the same. He was torn between humor and horror, and it registered like the mewling of an injured kitten.

“She did too!”

“ _Amethyst!_ ”

“Nah, she didn’t,” she finally relented with a wicked grin, “but she, like, blew my phone the heck up until I told her that I was going to get you.”

_It’s been two hours, and you haven’t checked on him?_

_Did you at least give her the list of emergency numbers?_

_Oh, I hope he’s okay._

_Do you think he’s okay?_

“So she’s still worried, huh?” The humor and the horror had both disappeared; all that remained was a quiet weariness, a resignation, subtle, located in the scratches of his low voice. Amethyst glanced over and saw that a frown had overtaken Steven’s smile, had dimmed the light in his eyes, so she reigned herself in and let out a deep breath that seemed to hollow out her entire chest.

“Yeah, little man. We all were to be honest,” she told him truthfully, running a hand through her hair. “Y’know, it just hits a little too close to home for all of us. Like, with Yellow Diamond… and uh, just the general weirdness that comes with letting your kid go off to some random stranger’s gazillion dollar suite.”

“Oh,” he said softly and looked out of the window again. They were nearing the edge of the city now. In the rearview window, the skyscraper night twinkled its cold goodbye, and in front of them, the massive suspension bridge which connected Empire City to Jersey loomed ferociously in the darkness—a colossal steel snake waiting to devour them whole.

 _Let it_ , she thought with a grim smile. Anything to get back to Beach City.

Back to its simplicity.

Its quiescence.

All rolling sands and softly breaking waves.

Familiarity and comfort.

Home.

“You didn’t answer my question, Ste-man,” she joshed lightly when she couldn’t take him being pensive any longer. “How was hanging out with Blue Mama?”

 _Blue Mama._ She couldn’t help but praise herself with a snort. 

Good one, Amethyst.

“Aw, come on,” Steven sighed, never taking his gaze away from the window, “you don’t want to hear about it.”

“But I _do_ ,” she wheedled.

“You don’t,” he retorted glumly.

“Do.”

“Don’t.”

“ _Dooooooooo_.”

“Don’t.”

“I could do this all night, Stevo.”

“Ugh,” he groaned, looking her way with a pinched smile. “I know it, and I’m mad about it because I can’t.” He yawned into his hand, a streetlamp on Amethyst’s side catching some of the bruises that lined his wrist. They pulsed in the stark light. “Too tired for that.”

A lull in traffic gave Amethyst the opportunity to realize that he _looked_ tired.

Pale.

The circles under his eyes resembling the bruises on his arm.

Dr. Maheswaran had told her just yesterday that it was likely that he’d only grow more fatigued in the next couple of weeks if they didn’t regulate his hemoglobin and diet. He wasn’t eating enough, she’d said, and his anemia could lead to a whole slew of new complications if they didn’t keep an eye on it. She’d given Amethyst a list to give to Pearl, and neither of them had been in the mood to make the easy joke about Pearl loving lists.

“Then kick back and get some ZZZs, dude,” she said, trying and failing to sound casual. “You can tell me about Blue D tomorrow.”

“You sure?” he asked, but he was already reclining the seat, his hands coming to rest under his head. His mass of black curls.

“Yup.”

“Guess I can’t argue with that then,” Steven yawned again. His dark eyes drooped to a close, and an unstudied kind of stillness slowly took over his body, relaxing his limbs and regulating his shallow breathing. Amethyst had just resigned herself to the silence when his sleepy voiced pierced through it one last time.

“I know you don’t like her, Ames… but you let me go anyway. That meant a lot.”

“Anything to make you happy, Steven,” she mumbled automatically and searched her feelings to find that it was true.

This kid went through so much shit on a daily basis.

She could barely stand to watch, but she couldn’t take her eyes away from the carnage either.

She had to be there for him.

Had to do right _by_ him.

So if that meant letting him hang out with an old, white woman who probably needed therapy more than she did the company of a fourteen-year old, then by God, Amethyst would personally drive the car to Empire City every damn day if he wanted.

Her feelings were irrelevant.

And she had perspective enough to realize it.

**02.**

It’d been upwards of twenty years since Greg had last twined a cigarette between his fingers, but in the past week alone, he’d craved the familiar shape more violently than he had ever done so when he’d _actually_ smoked the things as a dumbass teenager.

Because Steven had suddenly needed a blood transfusion.

And then just as suddenly _had not_.

But the lapse between those two variables had pulled at Greg from the inside out, had tightened his chest and then suddenly exploded it, and his sense of equilibrium was a casualty of the wreckage.

He’d thought that he’d been managing it all.

The fear and the anxiety.

The helplessness.

The confusion.

The knowledge that his son was constantly in pain, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

He’d thought that he’d succeeded in pushing those awful things down, down, down. Submerged them behind his easy smiles and his even easier laughs. Distracted himself by plucking at his guitar every now and then. Thrown himself into the car wash like there was no tomorrow if he didn’t annihilate every single speck on Yellowtail’s salt-weathered, beaten down truck.

But his efforts had been futile.

This latest debacle had proved _that_ much to him.

And so now Greg leaned against the wooden balcony overlooking the beach and desperately wished that dark smoke was plunging its way through his lungs right about now, unfurling some of the tightness that so defined the way he held himself together these days. He wished it would claw its way through his entire body and smother all his broken pieces away.

Everything that hurt.

(It all did.)

He tightened his grip on the railing and barely registered the sound of the screen door creaking open behind him.

When it softly lurched to a close, he was surprised to find that Pearl had appeared next to him, gripping two beer bottles, her willowy body lost in the folds of her oversized sweater.

“You looked sad,” she offered softly by way of explanation, and then she offered one of the bottles as well. He accepted it with a stare that was nothing short of incredulous. This was _new_.

The last time Pearl had ever willingly given Greg something, it’d been a piece of her mind.

“Ah, uh, thanks, Pearl,” he stammered and hated himself for it. Like that was ever going to endear him to her.

But if she noticed—and knowing Pearl, she certainly did—she didn’t seem to care, because without so much as looking at him, she cracked open her own bottle, tipped her head back, and took a long drag of the amber substance.

A good quarter of it was gone before she finally lowered the bottle.

And exhaled, the sound hard and rough. Exhausted.

“I despise beer,” she murmured when it was all said and done, wiping her mouth with a delicate swipe of the back of her hand, “but I needed something that would burn.”

Greg studied her for a long moment before replying. Under the soft ambience of the porch light, the worry lines that had gathered on her forehead were creased with shadows.

“I know what you mean,” he admitted and looked away, looked out into the view beyond the balcony. At the sand leached silver by the gentle moonlight. At the black waters slowly churning in the ocean. The hiss and the fall of breaking waves. “I think I’d give my left arm for a cigarette right now.”

He popped the top of his own beer.

Nudged the cold rim to his mouth.

And let the bitter drink do the work he still half-thought that tobacco would do better.

But anything was better than nothing.

“I didn’t know that you smoked.” She peered at him inquisitively, perhaps even admonishingly, in that frustratingly superior way of hers.

But Greg rolled it off with a shrug. “Used to. Just an old habit from the days when I bummed around in the van.” Marty, his old manager, smiling like a shark and just as mean, had told him that all of the big rockstars smoked, so he should, too. He’d bought Greg his first pack of Marlboros when he was only nineteen.

Pearl accepted the explanation with a blink before she joined him in leaning against the balcony, propping her elbows and beer up onto the railing, her dark brown eyes slowly traveling the still landscape—roving, seeking, searching.

Hoping that a pair of headlights would suddenly appear in the light fog that misted the salty air.

Greg would know.

He’d been doing the exact same thing before she arrived.

She gripped her bottle tightly. “Maybe I should call? Check up on them?”

He consulted the watch on his right wrist. It was only 9:02.

“Give ‘em a few more minutes,” he advised reluctantly. “They’ll be here soon.”

“They left over two hours ago.”

“You gotta think about traffic, though. They could have even stopped to eat or pee.”

“I’m just being cautious,” she bristled slightly, her peach colored hair ruffled by wind and indignation both.

Greg offered an understanding half-smile. “I know.”

They were opposites, him and her.

Pearl was cautious, where Greg was decidedly not.

She was precision reconciled, and he was all easiness.

Steven needed to be coddled.

Steven needed to have the ability to be a regular kid.

And then there was the matter of Rose.

The different ways they carried her.

On her sleeve.

In his heart, somewhat tucked away.

 _But_ , for all that and for all these things that tended to divide them, they had _one_ thing in common at least.

No, scratch that.

_Two things._

They both loved Steven.

And this week had done a number on them because of it.

“I miss him,” she murmured, sadness and fear and frustration lapping the edges of her restrained voice. She kept these things hidden.

But so did Greg.

So maybe that was another commonality between them.

He took the risk and placed a huge hand on Pearl’s slender one. She stiffened under the weight before slowly relaxing, slowly turning her head to glance up at him with glistening eyes. Her lips parted as though to say something but then they pursed just as quickly, registering the new expression that had overwhelmed Greg’s face.

He was looking beyond Pearl now, though his hand tightened around hers.

At a pair of headlights.

The Honda Civic rolling through the sand.

“They’re home,” he croaked.

Delight, like a beacon, slowly lit Pearl’s drawn features.

_Home._

They tore down the stairs and into the sand, Pearl just ahead and Greg nipping at her heels.

The passenger door opened and Steven—God bless him—had just enough time to step out before he was enveloped by two pairs of arms, one lanky set, another thick, though both were warm with relief.

_His boy was home._

“Jeez,” Amethyst riffed from the driver’s seat, “he’s only been gone for a week.”

“Shush,” Pearl and Greg both hissed and laughed when they realized they did.

**03.**

_Pearl,_

_Steven’s health has declined considerably in the past few weeks. You all have probably noticed it and let me be quick to assure you that it isn’t because any lapse on your behalves. Chronic kidney disease tends to progress faster in adolescents._

_All the same, he’s lost seven pounds since May, and with the onset of anemia, he’s at risk of losing even more, amongst other complications. My advice to you this week is—_

“Whatcha reading?” The question, so cheerfully, so innocently asked, startled Pearl from the note that Dr. Maheswaran had sent to her along with a new list of directives intended for Steven’s care. 

In the time that she’d been reading it, Steven had apparently woken up, crept down from his lofted bed in the living room, and moseyed up next to her undetected, his elbows resting on the counter, chin nestled against his elbows. His curly hair was still tousled with sleep, wiry and sticking up all over the place like feathers.

Dark grooves bruised his beautiful eyes.

( _Rose’s_ eyes.)

Brown and warm and happy and sick.

“Nothing,” she said in a middling attempt at smoothness, folding the paper in one crisp movement and placing it in a nearby stack of other papers. “Just a… receipt for the fish fry.” She clapped her hands together once and smiled anxiously. “Yes, _definitely_ a receipt for the fish fry.”

Which was, of course, overkill.

Pearl had never been particularly good liar.

“ _Riiight,_ ” Steven replied, arching a skeptical brow, but to her relief, he didn’t press any further. The doubt slid from his face as he chuckled lightly. “I’d forgotten that was today. It just slipped my mind with everything going on this week.”

At the end of every month, the Crystal Gems organized a fish fry for the people in Beach City. Seven dollars for a plate, and the proceeds would go to some worthy cause or another. Today’s profits would actually be going back into the city itself, so they could fix up the Boardwalk. It’d been at least two decades since the wooden boards had been replaced, and they were nearly rotted now, having been deteriorated by salt and air and sun. It was a safety hazard to tourists, as well as to the residents themselves, and because the Parks and Recs department was too lazy to effect change, the Gems _would_.

Amethyst was out to collect the grouper and mullet from Yellowtail now.

“I can imagine,” she said softly and reached out to brush back his hair. “You’ve had a long week. How are you?”

“Totes good, Pearl,” he grinned up at her in what could only be described as characteristic Steven fashion. “Never been better.”

“The grammatically correct answer would have been _well,_ you know,” she chastised wryly.

“Yeah, but it’s suuummmmer,” he laughed. “I don’t have to be grammatically correct.”

“I suppose I can’t argue with that shining logic,” she sighed lightly and moved her hand from his hair to his face, her knuckles gently scraping his pale cheek. “But tell me the truth, Steven. Have you been okay this week? I’ve worried about you.”

And her face must have shown that she was serious because _his_ suddenly collapsed into a furtive look that only highlighted his pinched cheeks, the sickly architecture of his bones.

 _When had his face gotten so skinny, so hollowed out?_ she wondered fretfully, and in response, the beginnings of Dr. Maheswaran’s note jabbed her painfully in the stomach. Her chest.

He was losing weight, the doctor had said in her typically blunt fashion.

He was getting sicker.

Despite all their best efforts, he was still… deteriorating.

 _It wasn’t fair._ She suddenly wanted to cry, scream, kick a table and then turn it over. _It wasn’t fair at all._

“I know you have, Pearl,” Steven murmured kindly, leaning his head further into her touch, “but really and truly, I’ve been _okay_. I mean, yeah, I haven’t felt the best, and I dunno, maybe I’ve even felt my worst, but there have been plenty of good things that have happened this week that’ve offset the _bad_.”

He broke the nest of his elbows to extend one hand and tick the so-called _good thing_ s off on his fingers. “Amethyst and I got to watch every episode of the _Crying Breakfast Friends_ bomb together—poor Spoon by the way. The writers are so cruel to put a young silverware utensil through _that_! Oh! Oh, yeah! I met a new friend—one, like, actually my age! Connie, and holy cow, Pearl, she’s so smart and funny and thoughtful and precise. You’d really like her! I want you to meet her someday!” At that, Pearl couldn’t help but mirror back the wide smile that had transformed Steven’s face once again. It was infectious, always had been, and it almost made her forget what they’d been talking about in the first place—but he wasn’t done, and when he continued talking after taking a quick gulp of air, his expression was almost modest.

“And, like, then there’s Blue,” he half-murmured, sticking his third finger up before extending both of his hands outwards in a defensive manner. “I know, I know—you guys have issues with her, but I really wish you wouldn’t, Pearl. She went out of her way to be _present_ for me. You know how at the cemetery she was kind of distant and achingly sad and she looked like, um, a hobo?”

“Yes,” Pearl frowned. She distinctly remembered.

“Well, she dressed up for me! For _me_ , Pearl, and I could tell that it took all of her energy to do so, and anyway, I like her a lot, and I just wanted you to know that.” Tired and talked out, Steven tucked his elbows back under his chin once more, his breaths coming short, labored. Because his working kidney didn’t facilitate red blood cell production as naturally and efficiently as a healthy kidney would, his heart worked harder to pump blood as a result, which in turn affected his lungs, his chest, how he even breathed _these_ days. Dr. Maheswaran had called it comorbidity, and Pearl had spent many a long nights Googling just all the ways his little body was going to suffer because of his disease.

It wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t fair at all.

“Long story short, this week wasn’t all bad, Pearl. Sometimes, I even felt _happy,_ ” he said, and a small smile crooked at the corner of his lips. Lit the lights of his eyes.

She opened her mouth and then closed it.

Tried again, but no words came out as she fought desperately against the mess of feelings rising in her chest, her throat.

Pearl was determined, set in her prejudice (which she thought was incredibly warranted, mind you), and she very much would have liked to tell Steven exactly how she felt about Blue Diamond. How she didn’t understand her complicity with her wife’s ways. How just her association with Yellow Diamond made her skin crawl.

But… _but she just couldn’t._

Not when he’d said that he was happy.

Not when he had implied that Blue Diamond was a part of what had made him so in the first place.

“I’m… glad for you, Steven,” she finally choked out, her voice thick, eyes burning. She collected herself, pinched the bridge of her beaky nose. “I’m so glad that you could make some light out of this week.”

“You’re not…” he began tentatively, his eyes wide with disbelief, “you’re not going to get on to me about Blue?”

Pearl winced and remembered their conversation the night before he had left; she had been unmistakably clear about how she felt about him gallivanting off to Blue Diamond’s million dollar suite. Steven was obviously reminded of that, too.

“Maybe later.” She tried for wryness, but her smile fell short. “But for now, my main concern is getting some breakfast into your tummy. You must be hungry.”

“Um, not particularly.” He scratched the back of his head. “But I can try to eat something, I guess?”

“Perfect,” she lied. (In a perfect world, Steven would be a healthy boy who had a voracious appetite and didn’t need to be coaxed into eating breakfast.) “Now go wash up, alright?” She booped his nose lightly with her finger before withdrawing her hand altogether. “You have boogers in your eyes.”

“Roger that,” he consented with a grin before dutifully sliding his arms off the counter and bounding off towards the bathroom. His curly hair bounced as he went.

When she was sure that she heard the lock click, Pearl slid one last furtive glance in the direction he had disappeared before withdrawing Dr. Maheswaran’s note from the pile of papers she had unceremoniously stuffed it into, and the rest of the doctor’s hastily scrawled note pulled at her eyes.

And then it made her feel sick.

 _My advice to you this week is to ensure that he strictly follows the dietician’s recommendations for caloric intake. Additionally,_ _he absolutely must take those iron pills_ _in order to encourage red blood cell production in his body._

_If I find that his condition has worsened by the end of this week, then I think our best step forward is hospitalizing him again, so that we can supplement his nutrition with a feeding tube and monitor his hemoglobin levels._

_I wish you and the others well._

_Priyanka_


	8. Home (II)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two words. 
> 
> Writer's block.
> 
> This chapter was just so hard to write, lol—like carving a sculpture with a plastic fork.
> 
> I really hope you guys enjoy, and as always, thank you for your love and support on this fic! As for its future, I want to make a note of saying that it's honestly likely that "FC" won't have a regular schedule for awhile. Blame the school system, peeps. It's stifling my ability to be a functional human being or whatever.

**01.**

Of the five humans and two cats who lived in the beach house fixed into the side of a massive, weathered cliff, Garnet was the only one of its motley inhabitants who felt the strong need to be up at sunrise. Pearl was up soon afterwards, of course, but it was Garnet alone who typically had the privilege of leaning against the kitchen sink and watching the sun ascend the varicolored sky through the squared window.

It was a brilliant sight to behold.

Never the same.

Always unique.

 _Calming_ , a continually changing study in serenity and beauty and light.

Silver melted into gold into pink into soft blue.

The gentle radiance hummed in her veins—soothed her nerves and told her to go softly.

She was _alive_ , vital, present, and that was all that really mattered in the end.

Beyond that ritual, though, sunrise was the only time of day that Garnet—the personal trainer, the consummate leader, the mother, the daughter, the stalwart friend—chose to devote to herself and _only_ herself. To running. To swimming. To meditating on the beach. Anything _she_ wanted.

 _Today was no different_ , she told herself as she scrubbed at her bleary eyes.

 _Today was no different_ , she lied.

Guided by the gray light streaming in from the window in her room, Garnet pulled on her favorite black joggers and donned a white tank top that jutted against the peaks of her sharp shoulder blades.

Socks.

Sneakers.

Armband.

Phone tucked in armband.

Earbuds slung carelessly around her neck.

When these preparations were carried out, she appraised herself in the mirror sitting atop of her dresser.

Very much liked what she saw—one-hundred and thirty five pounds of refined and damn fine muscle.

And grinned, one of her dual colored eyes—the bright blue one—winking back at her.

 _She was just going jogging_ , she told herself as she folded her beloved sunglasses against the neck of her shirt.

 _She was just going jogging_ , she lied.

In the mirror, her smile faltered.

Just enough to tilt the symmetry of her face into something completely unrecognizable.

Ugly.

She looked away immediately.

Inhaled.

Proceeded to crack her door open.

Exhaled.

And was relieved to find that the house was still silent with sleep. Garnet crept softly along all the lines in the wooden floorboards she knew would not creak, dancing between the offenders as though they were jagged rocks and quietude was the gentle sea. She swam. She pirouetted. She ghosted the long hallway until it bled into their living area, which served a triple purpose with its high ceiling and wide dimensions.

It was a living room.

It was a kitchen.

And more importantly still, it was Steven’s bedroom.

In the corner furthest away from Garnet, Steven’s bed was lofted onto a tall, wooden platform. Natural light, the dull gray now invested with a slowly flickering orange, seeped in from the large window diagonal to the bed, soaking his white comforter in the fiery glow of dawn, barely missing out on touching _him_. What little she could see of his face, even from this distance, was pale, white, lifeless.

But absence of light wasn’t really the issue here—God, she wished it were that simple—but rather it was the absence of health that so defined his complexion these days.

He’d been gone for a week so a machine could do all the things his little body could not.

Extract the waste.

Pump the good stuff into him.

And now he was _home_.

(For a few days at least. The cycle would begin anew all too soon.)

But every time he left her, got into a car and did not look behind him, Garnet’s mind, body, and soul strained against the fear that _this_ would be the time he wouldn’t make it back. He’d almost needed a blood transfusion this week. Amethyst’s texts had spoken to more bad than good. This week, this year, this disease had worn at her nerves, had chipped away at her cool facade until darkness unspooled through the cracks, and everything that was _in_ , came leaking, plunging _out_.

And yet, there Steven was.

Sleeping soundly.

All nestled in his covers.

 _Alive_ , not entirely vital, but _present_ , and wasn’t that all that really mattered in the end?

The here and the now?

Was not the future a winding, drifting thing—an entity entirely incompatible with prediction—so worrying about it was a futile practice anyway?

Garnet wasn’t entirely sure.

About that.

About anything anymore.

She stood in the shadows and desperately wanted to bound up the loft to pull Steven into a earth-shattering hug. She pulled her arms tightly to her chest and wanted to melt into the ground rather than face all the new ways he might have deteriorated since the last time she had seen him. She wanted to fast forward to the end—whatever that happened to be—just so she would _know_. She wanted just a little longer with him still—if the ending happened to bad. A couple of more summer days in the sun. A few more quiet nights where she wrapped herself around his little body and held on tight.

She wanted and she wanted and she wanted, but the more she thought, and the longer she stared at Steven’s unmoving form in the bed, the conflicting natures of her desires nipped at each other’s heels as they went round and round in her head.

She wanted to do right by him.

She wanted to stop feeling like she was always doing wrong.

She wanted to curse God for allowing this beautiful boy to endure something so horrible.

She wanted to disbelieve in a god who allotted such cruelty to blot a life that had done nothing to deserve it.

She wanted to be the leader they all thought her to be.

She wanted the others to stop looking up to her as though she contained all the answers in the calm repose of her hands.

Garnet wanted… she wanted to run.

And so she did.

Because it was the easy choice to make.

Because it was the one she made a thousand times over in these days when everything was getting to be too much, too murky. Dark and silent and sad.

_Today was no different._

_She was just going jogging._

Just as the floorboards began to lurch under her feet, Garnet sprinted the couple of feet to the screen door, wrenched it open as quietly as her screaming nerves would allow, and let the rising sun devour her.

**02.**

The screen door flew open within a couple of Peridot’s charmingly abrasive knocks, and at its center stood Pearl, who only sighed and swiped at her clammy forehead when she realized who she was staring at. She must have been cooking very recently, must have been using flour, because when her knuckles swept across her temple, her tawny skin was streaked with white.

Lapis personally thought that she looked like hell—all disheveled hair and haphazardly rolled sleeves—which very probably meant that _Steven_ looked like hell. Pearl’s entire existence revolved around that boy, and when things took a turn for the worse, it _showed_.

Her stomach turned and turned again, and every revolution brought her closer to the sadness she had desperately not wanted to feel today.

“No solicitors,” Pearl said wryly, a tired smile twitching at the corner of her thin mouth.

“We’re broke college students,” Lapis replied, a little too quietly. “We can’t solicit shit.” She was deadpan and disinterestedly amused, as was her norm, but Pearl was sharp, intuitive, more so that people gave her credit for her in their haste to underestimate the birdlike woman—she searched her eyes quickly and then tilted her head very slightly in subtle confirmation.

“Password accepted,” she laughed lightly—they both did—for Peridot’s benefit, maybe for their fragile own, and then she moved aside to let them in.

Lapis’s fingertips brushed Pearl’s as she went, and with her eyes she said, _I’m sorry._

Pearl froze, a thin pillar of salt that looked all but ready to crumble away at the slightest provocation, tethered only by the hand that stayed her, and with her eyes said, _I’m sorry too._

The living room was Steven-less, unless you counted Cat Steven, the newly adopted kitten who was curled around one of the legs of the coffee table, pawing gently at the wood. Peridot was drawn to the little feline immediately, and to Cat Steven’s delight, she crouched next to him and began to stroke the nape of his neck. The kitten purred contentedly and arched his head to get a closer look at his new friend, and once he had ascertained that he was in safe hands, his one good eye—the other was marred by a deep slash—slowly drifted to a sleepy close.

Lapis collapsed on the section of the couch directly in front of Peri and CS, warmed to see that a small smile had drawn itself across her roommate’s lips. It was a matter of kinship, she’d once said in that matter-of-fact tone of hers. Cat Steven only had one eye, and Peridot only had one leg, so naturally, _halvsies_ had to stick together.

As Pearl claimed a seat on Lapis’s left, Peridot, never taking her eyes away from the cat, asked, “So where’s Steven 1.0?”

The loft was a quiet haunt without Steven. His loud laugh. His stupidly big smile.

Even if he was only one room over, his absence demanded to be felt.

And they _all_ felt it when he was away in Empire City.

A thorn prick in their chests.

A dull weariness in their bones.

“Oh, showering,” Pearl said dismissively, her eyes darting to the bathroom door in a way that instantly belied the tone of her voice. “If you listen closely, you can hear him singing.”

They were dutifully silent for a moment, and sure enough, Steven’s sweet voice seeped from under the thin door, faint but audible against the serpentine hissing of the shower: _“Because I have a feeling that I will never end…”_

The irony of _those_ lyrics was not lost on its listeners.

Pearl lowered her head, and Lapis could almost see the world that balanced precariously on her thin shoulders.

 _Atlas_ , she thought numbly. _Atlas_.

“He’s getting worse, isn’t he?” Peridot murmured quietly, her fingers hovering above Cat Steven’s ears, and where they hovered, they trembled. CS nudged her palm gently, almost knowingly, and Lapis watched blankly as she drew the tiny kitten to her chest and buried her pointed nose into white fur, all tenderness, all vulnerability.

“Yes.” Pearl didn’t look up. Her slender hands came up to cradle her temples. “He’s getting worse.”

The sentence sunk onto the ground where they all could see it; it was an ugly little thing, an unbearable one.

Lapis was the first to look away, looking now at Pearl, now at Peridot and the cat, now at the door Steven was behind, anywhere but the ground where the finality of Pearl’s words lay. Her fists were clenched tightly on either side of her, knuckles white, fingernails excavating soft flesh. The pain grounded her, kept her from spiraling into the unproductive numbness that so defined the way she dealt with shit these days.

“Is there anything we can do?” It sounded like she had gravel stuck between her teeth. Concrete. Her words gritted and exposed bare.

But Pearl shook her head; it was a slow, solemn gesture.

“Just keep him happy,” she said faintly, her fingers now a neat temple in her lap. “That’s all any of us can do for now.”

“We can do that,” Peridot assented immediately.

“Yeah,” Lapis followed.

Cat Steven gamely meowed.

“Oh, and Lapis? Peridot?” Pearl’s voice barely breached a whisper. She was fragile, startlingly so, in a way that Lapis had never known her to be. A simple breeze could probably topple her over. “I don’t want Steven learning about this… not yet, at least. Can I count on you two to help me with that endeavor?”

“You want us to…” Peridot seemed to grapple with her words for a moment, a slight furrow in her pale brow. “You want us to _lie_ to him?”

The engineer had worked out the equation.

And she did not find the solution workable.

“Not lie,” Pearl defended herself quickly. “Just, you know, avoid telling him until we figure out the _right_ way to do it. I don’t want to hurt him.” She drew her thin arms across her chest. “He’s had enough hurt in his lifetime.”

“It makes sense.” Lapis stared straight at Peridot as she said it, and Peridot stared right back, hesitant, disbelieving. Cat Steven batted at one of the drawstrings of her black hoodie, but she paid no mind to him, green eyes searching ocean blue ones. Her scientific mind found the act of lying to be inscrutable, a gross misuse of energy better spent actively seeking out the truth.

But experience and experimentation alike had taught Lapis that the truth was sometimes worse than the lie.

“It does?”

“Yeah,” she shrugged, “it totally does. It’s not our place to tell him, Peri, and knowing us, we’d probably screw it up if we tried. Neither of us are exactly people persons, y’know?”

Peridot thought on it for a moment—lips pressed into a frown, wire-rimmed glasses sliding down the bridge of her nose—but eventually, the clouded expression in her eyes gave way to acceptance.

A heavy, exacting kind.

One Lapis knew had cost her.

So she was all the more relieved, all the more grateful, when Peridot’s pointed features twisted into the beginnings of a mischievous smile.

“I _suppose_ your logic is sound,” she conceded wryly. “I mean, didn’t you once tell a girl that at least her dead dog’s body would give nutrients to the soil?”

Oh, yeah—that was a thing that happened.

Eighth grade and poor Carnelian Rose.

She hadn’t been ready.

“You _didn’t_ ,” Pearl gasped, pulling the thin tips of her fingers over her mouth.

“I _so_ did,” Lapis replied, and her grin could have eaten shit. 

They laughed, Cat Steven meowed, and for just a shining moment, the world seemed to right itself on the axis of Pearl’s shoulders.

She laughed long and hard, longer and harder than the rest of them, carefully and yet indelicately, sane and yet crazed, sure and yet uncertain—all at the same time; the combination was wild, frenetic, beautiful.

And Pearl was the very same.

“That was certainly… morally dubious,” she finally choked out when she had gotten a hold of herself.

“You’re being too kind, Pearl. I’m an asshole.”

“Well,” she smiled, placing a floury hand on Lapis’s shoulder, “as long as you’re aware of it.”

**03.**

“Frick,” Peridot said as another balloon slipped between her fingers and spiraled up into the air on the salty breeze. That made three for her and two for Lapis, while Steven had yet to lose any. He’d been glued to his phone ever since Pearl had kicked them out onto the beach to inflate balloons for the fish fry, so technically, he hadn’t been competing in their little game of incompetence to begin with.

He looked up briefly to track the progress of the newly lost balloon before glancing down again, a certain grimness in the shape of his mouth as he typed.

“Nice one,” Lapis grinned as she tied a green balloon to the wailing stone—an old, broken amplifier of Greg’s that had regained its usefulness by having a spacious circular handle. (It didn’t _amplify_ music anymore, so much as it did skyrocket it to a pitch that would have woken the dead and any nearby cousins of the dead, hence the name _wailing_ stone.)

“Shut up, Lazuli,” she growled, violently plucking a new balloon from the bag. (It was a bright, electric blue, rather like Lapis’s unkempt hair.) “We were even until now.”

“Yes, but I let mine go on purpose,” her roommate replied evenly, plopping back down onto the picnic blanket and resting her weight on the palms of her hands, “you know, for artistic reasons.”

“And pray tell, what would those be?”

“Well, the first one symbolized all of my hopes and dreams, and the second one is simply titled _Yeet_.”

Peridot rolled her eyes but couldn’t quite suppress the twitching that occurred at the intersection of her mouth and cheek. “How minimalistic of you.”

Lapis winked at her. “That’s what I was going for, babe.”

Then they laughed, and Lapis reached over to place a steadying hand on Peridot’s good knee as she struggled to remain upright.

God, they were stupid.

But they were stupid fun.

And when she slanted a glance her roommate’s way, absorbing the way her blue eyes crinkled when she smiled, and how her bronzed skin seemed to glow in the radiance of the sun, Peridot found that that was all she needed to be content in this life.

Happy.

She placed her hand on Lapis’s, and Lapis grinned in that understated way of hers, and a warm, slow tingle bled down Peridot’s spine.

“We’re dumbasses,” Lapis laughed breathlessly, and after a moment’s hesitation, withdrew her hand, replaced it on picnic blanket. Peridot’s was left hovering in the space where her soft knuckles had once peaked under her palm.

She readjusted her equilibrium, tried not to think about how much she missed the warmth of her hand, and offered a teasing smile. “I agree wholeheartedly, but as you may recall, we’re not supposed to curse in front of Steven anymore.”

“Shit, I forgot.”

“ _Lapis._ ”

“Ah, sorry, Steven.”

They both turned to look at him now, hoping he’d rise to the occasion, hoping he’d engage, interact, be the dumb, beautiful boy they both knew and loved, but he was staring blankly at his phone, the sickly shadows in his pale face only highlighted by the faint light wash of the screen.

Lapis frowned and leaned over to wave her hand in front of his eyes. “Earth to Steven—is anyone there, or have we been sitting with an empty husk for the past half-hour?”

It was crude but effective (as was Lapis’s way). Steven finally jerked away from his screen with a jolt, and he looked around wildly for a few seconds before his gaze stumbled upon Lapis’s hand.

He stared at it for a longer moment still, his dark pupils strangely unfocused.

Blank.

As though they were trying to place the person whom the hand belonged to.

As though they did not know.

Pearl had told them to watch out for disorientation in Steven.

Confusion.

Mental dullness.

For these were signs that toxins were building up his body and vandalizing his nervous system, the inner workings of his brain.

Peridot’s stomach turned violently.

“Steven?” Lapis asked softly. Hesitation gathered at the edges of her voice, but she reached down and enclosed her hand around Steven’s free one anyway; the touch seemed to ground him faster than sight had. He shook his head once, and to their reliefs, when his eyes settled on them once more, his dark gaze was sharp, present, _mortified_.

“Ugh,” he said sheepishly, drawing a hand across the back of his neck, “sorry for being so rude guys. I’m just a little spaced out right now.”

“It’s okay,” Lapis shrugged in relief, but Peridot, panicked now and paranoid, wanted to know, “Why?”

Because until now, this very moment—no, _especially_ this very moment—it’d almost been as though there had a veil between him and them, one they could not breach.

One she had known before.

When she had been on its other side.

At the beginning of her junior year of high school, Peridot had been diagnosed with osteosarcoma, and had the doctors not chosen to amputate her right leg about six months into treatment, she would have died—plain and simple as that. She didn’t remember much about the whole experience, didn’t feel the need to look back, but what she did remember and remember well was the _veil_. Long and heavy, black and suffocating, cast over her entire body, it separated her from the rest of the world. From her family, her friends, from a sense that she still occupied the same reality as them. They were all a haze, and the sickness inside of her body was the only thing that was real.

The weakening of her body.

An inexorable attraction to the darkness.

Shutting her eyes and just… _leaving._

Letting the veil become her shroud.

She scrutinized Steven now and wondered if the veil was beginning to close upon him, too.

He had been withdrawn today.

Preoccupied.

And that terrified Peridot.

 _He’s getting worse_ , Pearl had said.

(It’d taken him approximately _twenty seconds_ to recognize the stimulus that was Lapis’s hand.)

“I was just… well… worried about Garnet,” Steven admitted, glancing down at his phone again. It remained lifeless and blank, a testament to his concerns. “I haven’t seen her since I got back last night, and that’s weird for her. I just wanted to make sure she was okay.”

 _Oh_ , she sighed in relief, _that was all?_

Not that his worries weren’t valid—and not that she wasn’t going to tell Pearl about what had happened at her first available opportunity— but they were more palatable than Peridot had expected them to be.

Jesus, this kid made her feel things.

Seven months ago, they’d met at a support group for sick kids, and he’d made her feel _alive_ for the first time in years.

_He’d been sitting in the chair next to her._

_He was so small that his feet didn’t even scrape the ground._

_And at his first meeting, he turned to her and smiled—smiled!—at her with wide, starry eyes._

_“Hullo, I’m Steven!”_

_“Peridot,” she said shortly and returned to her choice hobby of staring blankly at wall._

_“Your prosthetic leg is really cool, you know.”_

_She jerked her head to stare at him sharply, incredulously, instinctively searching for the scorn she knew_ **_had_ ** _to be in the round features of his face._

_The judgment._

_The simpering pity._

_The mocking aspect she had come to know all too well._

_But those things…_

_She frowned slightly, studying him as intently as she would any foreign specimen in a petri glass._

_… weren’t there._

_Not in his eyes, which shined so brightly as they stared into her own._

_Nor in his smile, which was soft and warm, inviting and sincere._

_He leaned forward in his chair like a bird getting ready to take off for flight._

_“It’s not polite to make fun of amputees,” she accused groundlessly. Better to be safe than sorry. Empirical evidence wasn’t always a reliable source of information after all._

_Venomous animals were the brightest, prettiest ones._

_They lured you in right before they struck._

_“I’m not making fun,” he huffed playfully. “I’m complimenting you. Haven’t you ever been complimented before?”_

_“No.”_

_“Well, Peridot, today’s your lucky day. I’m gonna change that for you.”_

“I’m sure she’s fine,” she said in her best consoling voice (which was tentatively passable at best). “Garnet just likes to up and disappear from time to time; I highly doubt that it has anything to do with you.”

But apparently that was the wrong thing to say because Steven only moaned and sunk his hands against his face: “Oh, jeez, I hadn’t thought of that. What if she’s angry at me?”

“Crap, no! I didn’t mean it like that! I was just—” She scrambled frantically, but Lapis mercifully intervened.

“What Peridot is _trying_ to say, Steven, is that you shouldn’t sweat it.” She placed a calming hand on his shoulder, a wry smile tilted at the corner of her mouth. “Garnet loves you, and whatever she’s doing right now doesn’t change that, even if she did, like, totally ghost you this morning.”

“I feel like I practically said the same thing,” Peridot asserted indignantly, “but yes, what she said.”

That seemed to cheer him at least because he lowered his hands from his face and chuckled sadly. “I know, I know. You’re _both_ right. I’m just being a worrywart. I’ve just—” But then he stopped himself and shook his head lightly, a certain resignation in the gesture that made her heart hurt. “Nope, you know what? Never mind. Let’s blow up some balloons.”

He bent forward to retrieve one from the bag, but Peridot caught his hand en route.

“Nope, you know what? Forget the balloons. Tell us what’s going on inside that thick head of yours, Steven.”

“It’s nothing. I was only—“

“”If it was nothing,” Lapis cut across him smartly, “then why do you look like a puppy that’s just been kicked?”

“ _You guys_ ,” he whined, but Peridot only shook her head and tightened her grasp on his wrist. (Although not too tightly, of course, because he was quick to bruise these days.)

“Listen, Steven, remember all of that nonsense you gave me about not keeping stuff bottled up inside and blah-blah-emotions-blah?” She only continued when he nodded faintly. “Well, I’m giving the same speech to you in far less eloquent terms. We’re your friends. You can tell us anything, alright?”

He sighed, defeated, and offered her a bittersweet smile. “I’ve been cornered by the same unwavering love and support I routinely use on you guys, haven’t I?”

“Checkmate,” Peridot confirmed with a smug grin and finally released his hand.

Steven let it fall into his crossed lap, let his dark gaze crumble there, too, and when he finally spoke again, his voice was quiet, thoughtful, strained.

“These past few weeks, I’ve just… I dunno, I’ve just felt like everyone’s been tiptoeing around me to make sure that I don’t crack,” he said, his brow furrowed, his rounded shoulders tense. It was almost as though his entire being was wrapped tightly around the sentences that made it past his gritted teeth; each word was irritated, inflamed, a wound he was grappling with word _by_ word. “Pearl hides Dr. Maheswaran’s notes from me and pretends that they’re stupid receipts. Amethyst relents to everything I say, which is nice and all, but I’m used to her fighting back, you know? Challenging me—she doesn’t do that anymore. Dad thinks he can laugh his pain away, and now Garnet’s missing, and—” He stopped short and brought the hand in his lap up to his chest as his breaths came in quick, painful bursts; they were rasping, ugly sounds that rattled the still air.

“ _Breathe_ , Steven,” Lapis murmured.

He shot her a look that plainly stated, _I’m trying to_.

“They think I’m fragile,” he croaked when he finally caught his breath. “They think I can’t handle their truths, that they’d be hurting me just by _telling_ the truth, but dang it, they’re hurting me by doing _this_.”

He stabbed his hands outwards at the word _this_ before they both collapsed limply on his lap again.

He was pale.

Sick.

Spent.

 _He’s getting worse_ , Pearl had said.

Peridot tried hard not to look at Lapis, who tried equally hard not to look at Peridot, and then because they were human, they both failed, and green eyes clashed against blue, and brown eyes widened in surprise before they narrowed in hurt.

“And now you two are sharing a look that makes me think you know something I don’t know,” he whispered softly.

Without accusation.

And that was the greatest condemnation of them all.

Steven drew his knees to his chest, placed his chin on his knees, and was careful not to look at either of them.

“Steven, wait, I—”

But Lapis put a restraining hand on her shoulder, gave a subtle, sad shake of her head.

They had promised Pearl.

_“Cancer,” she said casually, like she was ticking off casual hobbies. Reading. Robotics. Video games. Cancer. “Got diagnosed when I was sixteen. I’ve been in remission for close to a year now.”_

_“That’s awesome, Peridot!” Steven exclaimed, lightly nudging her with his shoulder. The support group meeting had ended for the day, and they were walking the long sidewalk that wrapped around the Baptist church to the parking lot in the back. Whether_ **_he_ ** _was keeping pace with her jacked up gait, or_ **_she_ ** _was matching his slow amble, Peridot wasn’t quite sure… but all the same, it was just… nice to be walking in sync with someone._

_Steven swung his arms at his sides as they slowly conquered the concrete, step over steady step_

_“Thanks.” The word was heavy, clumsy, and vaguely sarcastic on her tongue; she could have been an alien for all she knew about interacting with other humans these days. “And how about you? What’s your irrevocable damage?”_

_(_ **_Besides the general trauma of enduring this lame-ass place,_ ** _she thought dryly, not a particular fan of Mr. Smiley’s overly cheery and more or less passive aggressive attempts at getting them to become well-adjusted people.)_

_“Oh, uh, kidney failure,” he spluttered, briefly turning his head away from her. “I was diagnosed last month actually.”_

_“And you’re what?” Peridot asked incredulously, pausing in her tracks. He only made it a couple of steps ahead of her before he stopped as well, twisting his head back to confront her with wide, abashed eyes. “Ten?!”_

_Yeah, yeah, anything he could have said would have been bad, but she hadn’t been expecting_ **_organ failure_ ** _. Most of the support group attendees struggled with cancer or similar wasting diseases, and not many, if any of them, were as young as Steven seemed to be—he looked as though he had came straight from an elementary school playground._

_“Thirteen-and-a-half actually. I just look on the younger side—hormonal imbalances and all.” A small grin made one of the sides of his face lopsided. “My dad says I’ll appreciate that one day. Not the hormonal imbalances, but, like, the part where I look young for my age.”_

_“I suppose so,” Peridot replied lamely as she struggled to process everything that he’d just told her. Thirteen? That was still so_ **_young_ ** _._

_“Yeah,” he replied just as lamely, and they lapsed into a heavy silence that took them to the parking lot._

_Peridot had just begun to look for her mother’s minivan (while simultaneously calculating the probability of extracting herself from Steven’s presence without it being overtly awkward), when the kid suddenly grabbed her hand and made her duck behind the hood of a silver car._

_“Wha—” Fortunately, she was able to bend her body in time, so her prosthetic adjusted with her, albeit awkwardly._

_“Sorry!” he apologized, immediately letting go of her hand. She used her newly freed appendage to rub the sore spot on her upper thigh. (_ **_Thanks, Steven._ ** _) His skin was cold and clammy, like slowly melting ice—which made sense given her observation that he was rather pale; she uneasily surmised that he couldn’t circulate blood very well. “I just caught a glimpse of one of my moms—Pearl. She was crying, and I didn’t want her to know that I saw because then she’d get all weird about it and try to buy me seven hundred new video games instead of just admitting to crying.”_

_“Wha—” She tried again, having grasped maybe every other word of his soliloquy, but he just shook his head and pointed upwards._

_Peridot dutifully slunk her pointed chin onto the hood of the stranger’s car and tried to look past the machine for a glimpse of some poor, sobbing woman._

_And luckily (or maybe unluckily), she didn’t have to look very far._

_A few rows ahead of the car they were currently hiding behind, a slight Asian woman with peach colored hair and impeccably rolled sleeves leaned against the door of an old Honda Civic. Her tall hands were splayed across her face, a shaky symphony of fingers; tears ran through the gaps and down her rather beaky nose._

_Peridot lowered her face back down to Steven once she had had her fill._

_She’d seen the very same expression on her own mother’s face a time or ten._

_“Any idea why she’s crying in the parking lot?”_

_Steven slowly nodded, his brown eyes clouded over. “I bet she’s just worn down. She works insane hours at a restaurant, and now she’s trying to take care of me and not really processing that well. And, like, I’m going to have to have a minor surgery next week, which is totally freaking her out, but she’s trying to hide that from me because, you know, she think she’s helping me by doing that.”_

_Peridot didn’t try to hide her indignation; she even bequeathed Steven with one of her famous eye rolls. “Well, that’s kind of dumb. You’re already handling the disease. Why shouldn’t you able to handle all the emotional work that it entails?”_

_She had absolutely hated when adults patronized her when she’d been sick._

_She’d been sixteen, not six, and she was a precocious teenager anyway._

_She wanted the damn truth._

_(And some damn morphine while they were at it.)_

_“Ugh,” he smiled in a way that made the lines under his eyes seem all the more pronounced, “you get it.”_

_“Yeah, Steven,” she sighed playfully before knocking him lightly in the shoulder. “I do.”_

“Screw it,” she muttered and shrugged Lapis’s hand off her shoulder. “I’m telling him.”

“Peridot, we promised!”

“ _You_ promised, Lapis,” she retorted bitterly, her hands balling into white fists. “There’s a difference.”

That shut her up—though the expression that crossed her face when it did made Peridot’s stomach lurch.

She forced herself to tear her eyes away from Lapis—Lapis and her wounded eyes, Lapis and the way her messy hair dripped down her face—and focused on Steven, who was staring between them with a slightly open mouth.

“You want to know what we know, Steven?” She asked harshly, heat and horror and hell and hurt clawing up her chest in a single, maddening instant. If she didn’t get these things out of her body soon, she was liable to start choking on them.

“ _Please_.” He was fervent, insistent; he leaned forward and grasped one of Peridot’s hands, fever seizing across his dark eyes.

And yet, his skin was like winter.

Like a flower trampled in the snow.

“Your condition is getting worse,” she said coldly, unsparingly. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that Lapis had buried her face in her hands, had begun to tremble. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

Steven Universe didn’t so much as flinch, his brown eyes cooling as they met hers.

“Yeah, Peridot—I did.”

They were silent for a long moment as they stared at one another.

Two sick kids who wouldn’t look away.

From each other.

From their sicknesses.

From the world.

Because dammit, they wanted to be alive _in_ it, not a surveyor from beyond the veil.

“You’ve always been so clever,” she whispered. “They forget that sometimes.”

Steven extended his free hand and thumbed away the lone tear that had dripped down the corner of her right eye.


	9. Home (III)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last of the ~~Beach City filler episodes~~ "Home" installments—I swear, lol.
> 
> Thank you guys for sticking with "Flower Child." I appreciate each and every one of your Kudos and comments; they never fail to make me feel like I'm on top of the world.
> 
> Hope you guys enjoy this chapter! Next week, we'll be back to Empire City, and for the first time in this fic, I think we'll play around in Steven's point of view for a little while. ;)
> 
> (Pearl sketch at the bottom.)

**01.**

The sand pushed against Garnet, but Garnet pushed back, dragging her feet through the coarse grain that seized at her with millions of grasping hands. Fingers around her swollen ankles. Claws. But she did not stop; she could not afford to stop.

She was afraid that she would let the sand bury her if she did.

The yellow dunes a monument to her cowardice.

To every instinct that had told her to run.

The sun carved itself into her back; she ran to invite its pain, not in spite of it.

Her tank top was slick with sweat, pressed against her skin like a white tattoo; she ran and half-wished the garment would choke her.

Damn coward that she was, she ran.

And she did not look back. The sharp heaving of her chest felt like knives.

One full hour of this— _don’t stop_ —two— _don’t look back_ —and then suddenly, without warning, Garnet’s powerful legs buckled underneath her and she pitched forward in the sand, choking, teeth gritted with the salted grain. She coughed violently, and black spots sprayed across her vision as she fought to maintain a tenuous grip on reality, but it slipped away from her as she dipped her forehead against a fallen, sweat drenched arm. The sun bore down on the back of her exposed neck. Her breath clouded in the pocket between her face and the hot sand. The ocean seethed against the shore.

Garnet closed her eyes.

She let go.

And a memory stole in—soft, vulnerable, a moth fluttering next to a candle.

_It was twilight, and the setting sun slanted through the blinds to soak the painfully white walls. An orange that seared. A deep purple that left a bruise. An angry pink, like the aftermath of a blow. Garnet sat on the edge of the railed bed, hands clenched until they were gray on her lap._

_And she was still, dreadfully still—a statue on the verge of erosion._

_“Garnet?”_

_She didn’t hear him at first, couldn’t hear anything past the blood boiling in her ears and the unholy trembling of her bones, her chest, her stomach._

_“Gaaaaarnet,” he persisted, a teasing edge to his voice. “You’re missing the best part! Toast just broke up with Milk because she thought he was cheating on her with Cereal, and now they’re both crying about it on split screens! Oh, wait—no! I spoke too soon! Toast, Milk, and Cereal are_ **_all_ ** _crying on triple split screens! Gosh, this is good stuff!”_

 _It was Monday night, which meant that a new_ **_Crying Breakfast Friends_ ** _was on. A show about clinically depressed breakfast items, it was somehow Steven’s favorite._

_He liked to gush about it._

**_This was normal,_ ** _she told herself._

 ** _This was normal_**. _She bit her lip so hard that blood welled where she split it._

 **_This was normal._ ** _She couldn’t look at him._

 **_This was normal._ ** _His empty catheter bag hung limply off the side of the bed._

_“Pearl said that I need to, uh, critically examine the stuff I watch, though, so if I’m being honest, the problem here is kinda forced. Cereal is obviously not into romantic relationships, and she just views Milk as a friend, which is totes cool, but I appreciate the character development they’re giving her.”_

_Kidney failure._

_He had_ **_kidney failure_ ** _._

_He was thirteen years old, dammit, and he had—_

_“Because you see,” he continued over the sound of a closely whirring machine, over the sound of her spiraling panic, “Cereal never shows emotion. Like,_ **_ever,_ ** _and she really values her friendships with both Toast and Milk, so this being the thing that breaks her is actually kinda sweet.”_

_Dr. Maheswaran’s lined face had fallen into geometric disarray when she had told them, all of her harshness slipping into nothingness, into a helplessness they had only seen her wear once before._

_The day of Rose’s funeral._

_“I’m sorry,” she had whispered. “I’m so sorry that this has happened.”_

_“And what I’m trying to say, Garnet, is that you’re spacing out right now, and it’s really scaring me,” Steven said, his voice vulnerable with the admission, cracked._

_The words were distant to her, landing in her ears but traveling no further. Even so, Garnet painfully drew her head up to look at him; it felt as though there was a weight upon her neck, a yoke, an iron clasp, a world._

_His dark eyes burned into hers, and they were the only things that did; the rest of his features were pale, ghostly, having long lost their beautiful olive tint to sickness._

_He was thirteen._

_He had kidney failure._

_“Please,” he murmured softly, extending his chubby hand towards her—as far as all of the tubing and wires would allow. “I need you to be here for me, Garnet. If you’re scared, let’s be scared together.Because I’m kind of scared, and everyone else is gone, but you’re here, and yet, you’re not really here, and I—”_

_She was slow, slower than she usually was when it came to comforting Steven. He scraped his knee after falling down? Easy. She could scoop him up into her strong arms and blow raspberries onto his tubby belly until he forgot the sting. Emotional episode of_ **_Crying Breakfast Friends_ ** _? She’d pass him the tissue box seconds before he even opened his mouth to ask for it._

_But this?_

**_This?_ **

_This was uncharted territory—for Steven, for her, for Greg, Amethyst, and Pearl._

_So she was slow, achingly slow, to close the distance between them, to wrap Steven into her arms, to place her chin on the crown of his curls._

_But she managed it._

_(How? She couldn’t say.)_

_She rubbed soothing circles into the small of his gowned back and whispered, “I’m here.”_

**_I’m here._ **

**_I’m here._ **

**_I’m here._ **

_In the warm shield of her arms, Steven began to cry._

Barely five minutes had passed, but they felt like an eternity as Garnet finally pushed herself out of the sand and into a tentative sitting position, lightheaded from the heat and yet heavy with exhaustion. She could have floated away; she could have melted into the ground.

But both of these options were untenable.

She had to—she stumbled gracelessly to her feet—get to—she palmed a sweaty hand across her face—Steven. A low growl tore through her teeth as she began to run.

The sand pushed against Garnet, but Garnet pushed back, hands scissoring the still air, thighs burning with the exertion. She felt the clever trappings of the yellow grain, felt the particles climb up her skin and entreat her to stay, but she did not stop; she could not afford to stop.

She had a purpose now.

Something… someone… to run home to.

One full hour of this, but not quite two—she was fast, determined, indomitable—and the beach house came into view, snugly perched on the cliff, its railings newly livened up by a multitude of colorful balloons. Garnet only slowed to a walk when her foot found purchase on a stair, lead pooling suddenly onto its weight.

Nearly four hours of running, and she’d forgotten her water bottle in her haste to leave. Her lips, her throat, her entire body were scorched, but she paid no mind to these little details as she dragged herself up the stairs, one sluggish foot after another.

She had to—she crossed the wooden deck—get to—she wrapped her glistening fingers around the door handle—Steven.

Garnet opened the door.

A whoosh of cold air rose to greet her, and she was able to pry her eyes out of their half-lidded weariness. The ceiling fan in the living room whirred. Kneeling next to the coffee table, Peridot and Lapis looked up from where they had been counting plastic utensils.

Peridot opened her mouth as though to speak, but someone else beat her to the punch.

“Garnet?”

Her head shot to the left, and there Steven was—sitting on his bed, his pale face awash with relief.

She was slow, achingly slow, as she climbed the couple of steps leading up to the loft.

But she didn’t have to go much further.

Steven slid off his bed and met her halfway, curling his arms around her sweaty leg.

“I’m here,” she said softly, placing a tentative hand on his curls.

_I’m here._

_I’m here._

_I’m here._

_(And I’m sorry.)_

“Ugh,” he replied with a grin, scrunching up his button nose, “you stink, Garnet.”

**02.**

Naturally, the fish fry was a success—as it always was with Pearl at the organizational helm.

Only a handful of people lived in Beach City, true, but this very handful invited their friends and family from neighboring towns and cities, and fifteen odd people somehow became nearly one hundred. By five, around seven hundred dollars had been raised, and they hadn’t even looked at the bids for their silent auction yet! (Vidalia was offering up some of her artwork, and Boardwalk vendors like Mr. Fryman and Kofi had been gracious enough to donate services like free catering to the pool of available items.)

Leaning against the porch railing, Pearl surveyed the view in front of her and waited for the swell of pride that usually congratulated her after a night of such accomplishment. Garnet and Amethyst had arranged round tables all over their little stretch of beach, and sitting at the front of the deck, a long, rectangular table boasted scant and scattered piles of white to-go boxes, the pitiful remnant of what had once been teetering pyramids. (Surely, people would snag the last couple on their way out, just to have leftovers for tomorrow.) The sun, golden and blurred around the edges, sunk into the low neck of the horizon, casting lovely, shimmering images on the ocean just beyond the beach. People were laughing and talking and dancing to some hip electronic song that Vidalia’s DJ son was blaring through his tall speakers.

The day had been perfect.

So why did Pearl feel like she was about to throw up?

Maybe it was the way various people from town kept coming up to her and asking after Steven. They meant well, but their sympathetic eyes and the pity in their voices and the subtle relief in their faces ( _I’m glad it’s not me_ ) started to blend and grate after awhile.

“Ah, poor Universe,” Mayor Dewey sighed, tsking lightly. “It just doesn’t seem fair, does it?”

“Sweet kid.” Barb Miller knocked her affectionately in the shoulder (nearly barreling her over in the process). “I just dunno if I could do it if it was my Sadie.”

“You tell Steven that he’s welcome to come to Funland at anytime, ya hear?” Mr. Smiley smiled, all teeth, brimming with an ungodly kind of optimism.

“He’s not looking good, is he?”

“You guys are doing the Lord’s work.”

“Has there been any news?”

“I’m bringing a casserole over soon!”

And on and on. Pearl’s hand drifted to her stomach, and her eyes drifted down to one of the tables closest to the house, where Garnet was sitting alone, her expression seemingly vacant behind her trademark sunglasses. But Pearl was perceptive, and what’s more, familiar with Garnet after nearly two decades of being her roommate. The sculptured lines of her muscles were tense, electric with nerves. Her legs were crossed, but the foot she had on the ground bobbed out of time with Sour Cream’s music.

Maybe it was the knowledge that tonight, she’d sit across Garnet and tell her about the contents of Dr. Maheswaran’s letter. She’d have to watch as Garnet’s stoic features would crumple as she registered the words _feeding tube_ , how her hands would clench tightly on her lap in the place of spoken words.

Maybe it was the fact that Steven had only picked at his grilled fish tonight, had nibbled on an unsalted french fry or two before shoving his plate away apologetically.

“I’m just not hungry.” He’d said the same thing about his pancakes this morning. He’d thrown up the one pancake that he could stomach.

Or maybe it was the way Amethyst’s brown eyes had dulled after Pearl had grabbed her arm earlier this evening and told her that they were going to have a family meeting on the deck.

“Something’s wrong, isn’t it?” Her voice was quiet, scratchy in all of her vulnerable places.

Pearl stifled the urge to look away and could only manage a curt nod.

“I figured as much,” she sighed, pulling a hand across the back of her neck. “Dr. M was really antsy this week. Guess that can’t mean anything good.”

She searched for Amethyst now and found that she was with Steven. They were sitting on the shoreline, backs to the house, eyes on the setting sun. She had one plump arm slung around his shoulders. In the dying light, her long hair was a brilliant silver stream.

Jealousy nicked at her with an unexpected sting, a little paper cut right across her sternum, one inch long.

She wanted to know what they were talking about.

Wanted to cling to every word that came out of his mouth.

Every moment… every hour, every minute, every second… was precious with him nowadays.

He was an hourglass turned over, slowly trickling away.

Maybe she’d go down there and join them…

Maybe that would abate the awful mess of her stomach…

 _Maybe_ was her constant refrain tonight.

Uncertainty was the word.

“Ya’ve done it again, Pearl.”

Pearl blinked, and with a jolt, realized that Greg had joined her on the balcony, an appreciative grin stretched across his red face as he greeted her. In an old, white tank top and ripped jean shorts, he was just as _Greg_ as ever, but his bleary eyes betrayed him (just as Garnet’s foot did her and Amethyst’s dull expression spoke volumes). His tired gaze slid to where Steven and Amethyst sat on the beach, following where hers had just been, and his smile seemed to take on the subtle tinges of sadness as he absorbed the simple image.

She regained her composure with a tiny cough. “Ah, thank you, Greg. I’ve been meaning to catch you by the way. We’re having a family—”

He cut across her as kindly as anyone cutting across someone could manage. “—meeting tonight. Yeah, I know.” He jerked his thumb down below. “Garnet told me.”

“Oh.”

“Mhm.”

They lapsed into silence. There was nothing left to say; there were oceans. (But neither of them were particularly good at navigating the rough waters, so they remained silent in an attempt to not choke on salt.)

The party swirled on without them.

People laughing.

Talking.

Dancing.

Enjoying themselves.

They were all but alien creatures, every single one of them.

How were they so happy?

So carefree?

How was their world not bleak and gray and centered around a little boy named Steven?

“Pearl?” Greg asked after a long while.

“Hm?” She slid a curious glance his way, but he never took his eyes away from the darkening silhouettes of Amethyst and Steven; they were but specks in the distance now, bathed in the dusky sun.

“Do you remember what Rose used to say about sunsets? She had this whole speech about them, and I can almost hear it in my mind, but I honestly can’t remember it word for word.” He chuckled lightly and tapped the side of his balding head. “The years are catchin’ up to me, I guess.”

The mere mention of her name sent an involuntary shiver down Pearl’s spine. She wanted to hug herself; she wanted to wrap herself around the name and be left alone to mourn for it, but all the same, she knew instantly what Greg was searching for in her memories.

Her voice was thick as she volunteered it.

“She loved sunsets,” she whispered, looking down at her hand on the railing. Pale and cold, it was knotted with tiny goosebumps; the wooden grain beneath it was simply knotted by time and wind and salt. “And when she was… sick, you know, she used to say that sunsets were lovely ways to think about life and death and everything in-between. They’re explosions, riots of color that precede beautiful, star-strewn nights. She—”

Pearl faltered; she couldn’t go on.

“She said she was a sunset, didn’t she?” Greg said softly when he realized this. “She said that we shouldn’t grieve for her… that we should appreciate the night she leaves behind.”

She couldn’t _say_ yes so much as she could intimate it.

She nodded very slowly and tried to smile.

He shot her a watery grin in return.

The first stars began to pop up in the vast canvas of sky; Steven lifted his arm to point at them.

**03.**

By seven, nearly all of their guests had finally left; what stragglers remained helped clean up. By eight, the beach was all but pristine, the fish fry eradicated from its silky existence. All that remained were the multitude of collapsed tables that they had leaned against the deck for the night. Greg would take ‘em back to their storage unit sometime tomorrow. By nine, Steven had taken his bath and was tucked into bed by all four of his guardians.

“G’night, Stu-ball.”

“Goodnight, Steven.”

“Night.”

“Don’t let the bed bugs bite, Ste-man,” Amethyst grinned before promptly attacking his blanketed feet.

He giggled, the others stepped down from the loft, and then he surreptitiously whispered out of the corner of his mouth, _“The window!”_

She winked at him conspiratorially before descending herself.

When everyone was in their respective rooms, getting into their pajamas, Amethyst snuck into the darkened living room and moved deftly towards the corner that was opposite to Steven’s loft; with its L-shaped bench and plush cushions, it was more or less a reading nook for nerds like Pearl and Peridot to make themselves comfortable in. Glancing around to make sure that no other adult was observing—she was pretty sure she could detect a dark pair of fourteen-year old eyes glinting at her from across the room—she unlatched the lock in the window that overlooked the deck and pushed the glass an inch or so upwards. A narrow strip of humid air snuck its way into the cool room.

She gave Steven a thumbs up she wasn’t entirely sure he could see before scurrying off to her own room to pull on her own nighttime gear (a tank top and booty shorts, of course).

By 9:30, their little coterie was assembled at the white table that perched conveniently on the far corner of the deck, asses already chafing in the uncomfortable plastic chairs. (“I’ll eventually get us cushions,” Pearl often claimed. “I’m just waiting to find a set that complements the house best.” “Jesus,” Amethyst moaned in return.) Pearl sat lightly at the edge of her own chair and squinted at a tiny slip of paper that was barely illuminated by the soft, yellow porch light; Amethyst immediately recognized it as one of the papers that Dr. Maheswaran had wanted her to pass on.

As furtively as possible, she snuck a glance at the crack in the window that no one had yet to notice, thrilling a little at their clever subterfuge.

“So, uhh, what’s in that letter, Pearl?” Greg asked, nervously eyeing the note. He didn’t know the contents—none of them did—but there was something in Pearl’s features—something dark, something bleak—that spoke to their worst assumptions. Amethyst stiffened in her seat to prepare for the blow, never quite letting the window leave the periphery of her vision as she did.

Shit, maybe she shouldn’t have done this.

Pearl opened her mouth and then promptly shut it, and then opened it again but no words came out. Silently, she passed the paper to her left, to Garnet, who scanned Maheswaran’s piss poor handwriting before shoving the paper into Greg’s surprised hands.

She didn’t have her sunglasses on.

Her eyes, one blue, the other brown, stared wildly into space.

Amethyst was suddenly stricken of the image of a wounded animal—cornered, desperate, doomed.

“No, no,” Greg shook his head, his low voice rising with each denial. “It’s too soon for that. We can’t be there yet. He’s still eating. He’s—” The note had crumpled in his large hand.

“He’s puking up nearly everything we give him,” Pearl said lifelessly, staring down at the table. “That can’t be healthy for him.”

Amethyst impatiently snatched the letter from Greg’s clenched hand. “Lemme see!”

She smoothed out the wrinkles as much as she could manage and read:

_Pearl,_

_Steven’s health has declined considerably in the past few weeks. You all have probably noticed it and let me be quick to assure you that it isn’t because any lapse on your behalves. Chronic kidney disease tends to progress faster in adolescents._

_All the same, he’s lost seven pounds since May, and with the onset of anemia, he’s at risk of losing even more, amongst other complications. My advice to you this week is to ensure that he strictly follows the dietician’s recommendations for caloric intake. Additionally, he absolutely must take those iron pills in order to encourage red blood cell production in his body._

_If I find that his condition has worsened by the end of this week, then I think our best step forward is hospitalizing him again, so that we can supplement his nutrition with a feeding tube—_

She didn’t read any further, didn’t have to, dammit, and she cast the offending object away as though burned. Wrinkled and worn, it landed in the center of the table, an eyesore that drew all of their baleful glares.

For the most part, the letter was fine.

Hell, it was in the ballpark of the kind of stuff Dr. M usually sent.

It was just those two words.

_Feeding tube._

He might need a _feeding tube_.

Greg was right.

They couldn’t be there yet.

It was _way_ too soon.

“Dammit,” she said aloud, only remembering at the last second that it was carrying to ears beyond the ones at the table. (With every passing second, with every new drop of horror pooling in her belly, Amethyst regretted letting him listen in. He’d just been so persuasive on the beach, so ready to accept the consequences of what he could possibly hear… but even if _he_ was prepared, she wasn’t so sure that _she_ was.)

“Crude,” Pearl sighed, pinching the bridge of her sharp nose, “but accurate.”

Garnet shifted in her seat, her mouth set into an impossibly firm line that only budged when she spoke; her words were tense, pushed out through gritted teeth. “So what now?”

“Pardon?”

“What do we do now?” she asked, as though it was the most obvious question in the world, and perhaps it very well was. Dr. M had given them a possible consequence, and now they had to do their best to avoid it coming into fruition—if that was even possible.

Amethyst pulled the paper back to her side of the table, glanced over it one more time.

_My advice to you this week is to ensure that he strictly follows the dietician’s recommendations for caloric intake. Additionally, he absolutely must take those iron pills in order to encourage red blood cell production in his body._

“I guess we just try to follow Dr. M’s orders,” she shrugged when no one else was forthcoming, but even the act of shrugging seemed like a betrayal to the situation at hand. Her mouth was achingly dry. “Make sure he eats, give him his medicine, and yadda-yadda-yadda. It’s not a lot to work with, but it’s, like, better than nothing.”

“Well said,” Greg murmured, and to her relief, both Garnet and Pearl eventually brought themselves to nod.

“Better than nothing,” Garnet repeated, seemingly to herself. And then her bicolored eyes seemed to focus, as though drawing themselves back to the present. She blinked once and offered a lopsided grin to Amethyst, and Amethyst felt a sudden rush of grateful heat clamor up her cheeks. It’d been far too long since one of those had graced her features.

“Then I suppose that settles that,” Pearl said with visible relief, reaching across the table and reclaiming the note. She appeared a little less harried now that they had established a game plan. “Before we disperse, we should probably cover our finances for—”

Amethyst hadn’t even opened her mouth to call Pearl lame when an ominous plunk resounded from inside the house—dull but louder than it should have been. Closest to the window, but not facing it, Pearl whipped her head around and ascertained the crack with a choking gasp.

“Has that been open this whole time?!”

Amethyst suddenly found herself very interested in a lightning shaped crack in the table, but luckily enough, Pearl was more focused on examining the source of the noise— _please be one of the cats_ , she hoped against hope—than actively being suspicious about a window that they usually kept closed all the time. She sprung gracefully from her chair and opened the door as quietly as she could possibly manage, sticking her head in to look.

_“Oh, my God! Steven!”_


	10. Steven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, friends. 
> 
> I'm incredibly sorry about this long hiatus. Inspiration just... _flagged_ , and it was hard for me to pick this fic back up after days and days of, well, not picking it up. 
> 
> That being said, I still appreciate every kind word and every Kudos on this fic... and I promise, come hell or high water, I will finish "Flower Child" one day. <3

_It was the heat_ , he tried to tell Pearl as she frantically worked to revive him on the wooden floor, but the words were jumbled on his tongue, stew. Steven could barely keep his eyes open, could only dimly make out her face in the darkness—pale, dripping with her tears, _terrified_.

“Steven!” she cried, her spidery fingers crawling across his face, his neck, his chest. The sensation was vaguely unpleasant. “ _Steven!_ ”

 _It was the heat, Amethyst!_ _I’m fine! I’m fine! Please don’t cry._ But the gurgling and the bile percolating like acid in the back of his throat would not assume the form of these words. When he turned his head to the side, he could _just_ make out her bare feet stumbling over one another, her apologies coming in hiccups.

“I-I’m sorry, Steven! _I’m sorry!_ I-I just opened the window so he could hear, and—”

Pearl’s hands suddenly stopped on his chest, her sharp features turning to stone.

“ _You what now_?”

“I-I opened the window, Pearl! He wanted to know what was going on. He had the right to know!”

“It wasn’t _your_ right to make that call,” she snarled, her fingers twisting tightly into his shirt. “Now look at him! He’s—”

 _I’m fine!_ As he tried to speak, bile trickled out of the side of his mouth in a thin line. With a tenderness that did not befit the scary expression on her face, Pearl lifted his head gently, so he cough the phlegm out. His face was streaked with it. He was limp in her arms, a rag doll.

“Get it all out,” she whispered, her thumb brushing his burning cheek. “Shh, shh”—for he tried to talk again—“I’m here.”

“Hello, 911?! Yes, yes, this is Greg Universe. My son’s in renal failure, and he just suddenly collapsed, a-and we need to get an ambulance out here immediately…”

“Amethyst, make yourself _useful_ and go get our overnight bags. We won’t all be able to fit in the ambulance.”

_It’s not her fault, Pearl—please._

“Yes, we live at…”

“Garnet, can you call Dr. Maheswaran? She’ll… she’ll want to meet us up there.”

“Pearl,” Steven moaned, grasping feebly at her silky pajama shirt. Darkness was closing in on him quickly now, weighing down his chest, his legs, his arms. He clung tight to what he had. His hands looked as distant to him as the stars. The bruises on his arms were little blue nebulas, burning and blurring in equal turns.

Pearl’s head snapped down in an instant.

Her touch was soft, gentle, warm—and he was so cold, freezing.

_When did it get so cold in here?_

“I… I…” 

She tried to shush him again.

“Shh, save your strength—an ambulance is on the way.” 

But he wouldn’t be deterred.

His grip loosened, but his words did, too, all of his consonants and vowels slurred with sickness as they tumbled out of his mouth.

“I don’t wanna go to the hospital.”

All those needles and machines.

Poking and prodding and taking something out of him.

At that very moment, he couldn’t quite recall what they did _for_ him.

Pearl’s breath hitched in her throat, but she never stopped dragging her thumb across the side of his face. She was insistent in her touch, almost feverish, perhaps trying to assure herself of his pulse.

“I know you don’t. I _know_ ,” she choked out, “but you have to, Steven. It’s the only way.”

He’s heard this one before—time and time again.

Maybe he even believed it to be true.

Laying in Pearl's arms, he couldn't remember if he did.

“I’m so tired,” he whispered.

It was a child’s prayer.

It was an admission.

Pearl’s eyes were wide, pale moons above him, leaking.

“I know, but you have to stay awake, _please_ —at least until the ambulance gets here, okay?”

He swallowed thickly.

He could give her that at least.

“O-okay.”

But as much as he would have liked to stay, Steven fell away from consciousness in the way that stars fell away from the sky.

Like confetti, drifting.

—

If Steven dreamed of anything as he was being transported to the hospital, he dreamed of darkness. 

He dreamed that he closed his eyes and never opened them again, his world full of blackness, devoid of any light. He dreamed that he was at his own funeral, and Pearl’s long fingers shook on top of his still chest as she attempted to straighten his little bow tie. Amethyst was crying, and Garnet was crying, and Dad was, too, his red face hidden beneath his big, calloused hands as he sobbed. He dreamed that Lapis buried her nose into Peridot’s neck and that Dr. Maheswaran gripped Connie’s shoulders as Connie gripped her thick copy of _My Unfamiliar Familiar._ Her little straw wrapper bookmark poked out between the pages he would never get to hear now.

They’d stopped on a cliffhanger.

Her eyes soft, her smile bright, she had promised to read him more.

He dreamed that Blue Diamond sat in the front row, her silvery hair falling across her shoulder in a thick plait.

She was wearing that silky bathrobe of hers.

She twirled a pink hibiscus flower between her fingers as a lone tear slipped down her face and collected on her pointed chin.

Steven dreamed that he was dead...

... _and then he woke up._

It was dark when he opened his eyes, not in the way his _dream_ was dark, but dark in the way nights usually were—as though the promise of day just lurked around the corner. As his vision adjusted, he discerned that he was in a hospital room, the lights off, the TV on, a square of orange light slanting in through the crack in the doorway. His entire body was heavy, as though it was weighed down with insistent hands instead of blankets. He tried to wriggle his _own_ hand but found that it was encumbered with wires and tubing.

“Ugh,” he groaned into the darkness, subsequently discovering that his mouth was rather dry.

(Not that he liked to curse, but without a doubt, Steven felt like... _poop_.)

“Steven?” The mass at the foot of his bed that he originally took to be a pile of blankets suddenly shifted and said his name, which, of course, would have terrified him _witless_ if the light wash from the TV hadn’t happen to flicker across the silhouette at just the right moment. 

It was Pearl, and her features were devastated with relief.

“ _Steven!_ ” She stumbled out of the chair where she’d been sitting and fell next to his head, her lanky arms encircling his neck in such a studiously gentle way that he instantly knew that she wished she could hold him tightly. She was still in her pajamas, he realized with a jolt. Silk brushed against his neck and all of the wires protruding out of it.

He didn’t dare tell her that he was a little sore there, didn’t dare hurt her just a tiny concession to his own sickness more, but fortunately enough, she fell back on her own accord, pressing her elbows into the mattress.

“That’s my name,” he joked feebly, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards into a tired smile. “Don’t wear it out.”

She laughed incredulously, tears glinting in her big eyes, but she wiped at these quickly, her mouth wobbling to keep its smile.

“Silly boy.”

“You know it.”

Steven grinned at her.

(His teeth were like concrete, aching.)

She tried to grin back.

(And that was  _something,_ an improvement, at least, on her tears.)

He glanced up at the TV then, squinting to make out the time stamped on the corner of a generic weather channel. It was almost 3AM... he’d passed out around ten if he had to guess.

So much time unaccounted for.

His gaze trailed down to his right arm where a thick tube was laden with some kind of crimson liquid— _blood_ , he realized too many seconds too late. Pearl’s eyes followed his, and her tentative smile collapsed on itself like a balancing act gone wrong. She reached out and laid her hand on his left arm, which was considerably less machinated than the right.

She was so... _warm_... and he was so... _cold_. 

“Your hemoglobin dropped to a dangerous level,” she explained quietly. “Dr. Maheswaran had no choice but to transfuse you.”

“Oh,” he said. He couldn’t quite draw himself away from the sight. “I... I guess that’s okay. I mean... we knew this was a possibility, right?”

It was a poor man’s optimism, but it was all Steven had in him right now. Pearl’s gaze dropped from the crimson tube to the place where their arms were meeting. Studiously, she began rubbing rhythmic circles into the back of his hand.

“Steven...” He barely heard her. Even the distant hum and buzz from the outside hallway was louder. Someone was tired of working night shifts, and someone needed a mop bucket in Room 11035— _stat_ —and someone was sitting by his bedside, staring at him as though he was already a ghost.

He looked away, eyes flicking upwards towards the ceiling to abate the burning that had suddenly risen in them. 

“Just tell me, Pearl... _please_ ,” he whispered to the light fixture. “Rip off the bandaid.”

_I can take it._

_I’ve taken everything else already_.

“I… I don’t know if I…”

“ _Pearl_.”

“You’re very sick, sweetheart.” She flinched as she said it; she couldn’t believe it for herself.

“I know.”

He had known for awhile now.

For days, weeks, _months_.

 _Tell me something I don’t know, Pearl._  

Pearl’s fingers stilled on his hand.

“Dr. Maheswaran wants to keep you here for… for a little while longer.”

He did not skip a beat.

“How long?” (He did not skip a beat, and _yet_ , he was smart, clever—he already knew the answer before it left her mouth.)

She was silent again, agonized, her eyes screwed up against the truth.

 _Don’t make me say it_ , the expression said.

With his furrowed brow and grim mouth, he shot back, _Why not?_

“Pearl… _please._ ”

“Steven—”

“ _Please,_ " he croaked.

She opened her bright blue eyes; it looked as though it cost her to do so.

“… until we find you another kidney.”

The _if_ was implicit.

—

They unhooked him from the transfusion machine around five, and he fell asleep shortly afterwards, Pearl’s trembling lower lip the last sight his dark eyes lit upon before they succumbed to the utter exhaustion in his body. If Steven dreamed of anything in that lonely hospital room, he dreamed of darkness. He dreamed that he died in the hospital, that he slipped away one night when everyone else was asleep. He was alone, and the white walls were so cold, so sterile. His monitor flatlined, the insistent beeping noise shrilling across the line of his vision like a premonition, a ghost. A scream of discovery dribbled down the air. 

 _Amethyst_ , he guessed wildly. _Or was it Garnet? Pearl? Dad?!_

_Was it all of them at once?_

The sound was agony.

Inhuman.

Steven woke with a start, gasping heavily. The heart monitor whirred in time with his panic, beating a frantic, insistent tattoo.

“Hey, hey, hey— _breathe_ , kiddo!” Where there were once empty ceiling tiles, Dad’s face appeared above him, his bushy brow furrowed in concern, eyes wide with the anxiety he usually tried so hard to hide. He placed a big hand on Steven’s chest in an attempt to regulate his breathing. “Yeah, that’s it, buddy. In and out! In and out.”

In and out.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Steven feebly brought his left arm _up, up, up_... and let it fall against his dad’s as his chest rose and stumbled in short, staccato bursts. His head was light; the touch almost grounded him.

In and out.

Inhale.

Exhale.

In and out.

Inhale.

His fingers curled weakly against his father’s forearm.

Exhale.

Dad's eyes were the color of driftwood, burning bright.

When he could finally catch his breath, Steven did not use it to speak; rather, he closed his eyes, exhausted from even the simple act of _trying_ to breathe. Were his dad not hovering above him, there was a good chance that he’d just pass out again—slip into the familiar nothingness that slipped into nightmares—but slowly, painstakingly, he made himself unclose his eyes.

“Sorry,” he rasped. The gray light pouring in from the window stung him. He tried to focus on his dad’s face, but everything was blurred, fuzzy around the edges. “Nightmare.”

Dad brought his hand from Steven’s chest to his head, resting his palm on top of his curly, black hair. Relief made him look ten years younger, ten years less sad, but the wetness around the corners of his eyes told a different story.

“No apologies needed, champ,” he sighed, a weak smile rippling across his mouth. “I’m just glad you’re”—he hesitated slightly—“okay.”

Of course, _okay_ was not the right word.

Steven tried to return the smile anyway.

(It fell flat in his eyes.)

At that precise moment, though, he was spared from being caught out as Dr. Maheswaran burst through the door, looking, for all intents and purposes, _harried_. Her salt-and-pepper hair was tied back in a haphazard ponytail, and the usual lines under her eyes seemed harsher, as though someone had run through them with a Sharpie.

“Your heart,” she said gruffly by way of greeting. She barely threw either of them a glance as she proceeded over to the monitor mounted on the wall, arms crossed firmly over her chest as she studied it intensely. “What was wrong with it?”

“Nightmare,” Steven explained again. 

“He couldn’t catch his breath,” Dad elaborated further, finally removing his hand from Steven’s curls. “Think he might need oxygen?”

Dr. M pressed a few buttons on the monitor as she nodded tersely.

“Precisely, Universe. Looks like he’s not getting enough oxygen while he sleeps. I’ll get a nurse to come set him up shortly.”

She then swooped down, in a manner vaguely if not exactly hawklike, and briefly looked at the catheter bag poking out beneath Steven’s many blanket layers. It was amazing he hadn’t woken up for _that_ ordeal; when he was conscious, it was rather uncomfortable to say the least.

“Not as much as I’d like,” she murmured, seemingly to herself, “but I suppose that’s to be expected.”

And with that bleak assessment, she straightened back into a standing position, her brown eyes lighting upon Steven properly for the first time.

Looking closely, and knowing _where_ to look, he observed that all of the hardness in them had seemed to melt, like liquid.

For that was the thing about Dr. Maheswaran—she was all bite and no bark—not so much of a conundrum as she was a Russian nesting doll, hiding _oh-so-many_ layers. Her hardened facade was one, and here was another; he could see it in even the way she held her shoulders back, like she was holding something else back in the posture, too.

Something soft.

Something vulnerable.

“I’m glad to see your eyes open,” she said, tucking her hands into the pockets of her lab coat.“You scared me for a little while there.”

And maybe he had _;_ her entire appearance certainly attested to it.

“ _You_ —scared?” But he'd try to make this old grizzly bear smile anyway; that was his wont. “I don’t believe it.”

“Believe it, Steven.” Her lips just barely twitched. (He’d take it.) “When Garnet called, I just threw my lab coat over my pajamas and hightailed it up here.” She jerked a thumb over towards his dad. “Greg was there. He can tell you.”

Dad chuckled gamely, lowering himself back into the chair next to Steven’s bed.

“Yup—she got you stabilized all while wearing a onesie.”

“It was a matching two-piece,” she corrected him, “but I digress.”

Steven laughed—how could he not at such a ridiculous image?—but even _that_ proved to be too much on his poor chest. He winced involuntarily, and to his chagrin, the monitor called him out on it, stuttering as he did. Dr. Maheswaran and Dad both collapsed into their former sobrieties as quickly as they had tentatively shed them—stretched rubber bands recoiling.

“I’m going to find a nurse to set up your oxygen,” the nephrologist said suddenly, terse as she ever was but trying too hard to be so. “Universe.” She nodded awkwardly at Dad. “Steven.” Her incisive gaze settled on him for a brief moment before she turned away; he felt pierced through, like an x-ray.

And then she left—(fled)—her white lab coat flaring behind her as she stepped out of the open door. Dad stared at the place her back had been for only a short second more before shaking his head and returning his slow, somber gaze to Steven. There were bags under his eyes, gray whiskers in his beard.

“She was torn up last night,” he murmured, and then, as though it was an afterthought, added, “We all were.”

“I’m sorry, Dad.” It was all he could say. As much as the wires crisscrossing his torso would allow, Steven tilted his head on the pillow, so he could see his dad more easily. The man’s hands were on his lap, limply pointing to the tiled floor.

“S’not your fault, kiddo,” came the mumbled reply.

They were silent then.

It was a small comfort, but Steven’s heart monitor carried on.

—

By eight that morning, the sun was fully peeking out—warm and arresting, falling upon his swarm of blankets in little golden dapples. Steven watched these as the nurse slid the oxygenated cannulas around his ears and into each of his nostrils, and then he watched them some more as she changed out his catheter bag. She _hmphed_ at the less than satisfactory output in the very way Dr. Maheswaran had.

Around nine, his dad left to go find them some breakfast other than the mush that the cafeteria offered, and Garnet came in soon afterwards, her bicolored eyes still edged with the dregs of recent sleep. Attached to the hospital was a hotel that visitors could stay in while they were visiting patients, and only earlier that morning, Dad had made Pearl go join the others for a few hours of shuteye as only one guardian had been allowed to stay with him while he was still being transfused.

Garnet stepped in uncertainly, her discomfort scribbled all across her person in what could have very well been neon for all of her usual subtlety. She wrung her hands in a clear betrayal of the stoicism she espoused on a day to day basis, and she stared at him for what seemed like a long time before she crossed the room and placed her warm palm on his forehead, smoothing away a few of his stray curls. She’d never particularly cared for hospitals, but even still, every time Steven landed in one, she came and stayed anyway.

She was steady like that.

Constant.

“Garnet!” He exclaimed as she patted him.

“Hello, Steven,” she rumbled, her voice rich and soft. (She tended to be the very same.) “How’s my little fighter doing?”

It was a running joke between them. Ever since he’d been small, Garnet had taken him up to the gym from time to time to help her “train” her various clients. This practice ultimately amounted to Steven taking a few concerted shots at a punching bag while his guardian awarded him with a silent thumbs up each time that he did.

 _You’re a fighter in a whole different way now_ , she once told him after the diagnosis. Her square chin laying atop of his head, she whispered it into his hair. _Keep fighting. Please, Steven._

“Still fighting.” His smile was like a bruise, but it was a smile nonetheless. “But I guess I’m a little worse for wear.”

She was quiet as she absorbed the notion, her gaze flitting from his oxygen cannulas to the multitude of wires springing like roots from his chest—finally landing upon the couple of tubes snaking in and around his arms, red spots already popping up around the injection sites—promises of later contusions.

Garnet brushed her thumb across his forehead one last time before letting go and collapsing backwards into the chair next to his bed in what was more or less defeat.

“Mm, yeah.”

She looked down, her broad shoulders caved in on themselves, fingers templed and fallen between her lap.

That was another thing about Garnet.

She was present—always, without fail—but she could be so very distant at _precisely_ the same time.

Usually, Steven took it upon himself to bring her back, his hand reaching for her hand, his smile a loud invitation home.

Sometimes, he failed.

“Garnet?”

“... yes, Steven?”

And sometimes, he did not.

“Will you come lay down with me?” It was a familiar question, one he asked every time he had a bad nightmare, or every time he landed in a hospital to _live_ through another. In answer, Garnet would curl around his body, her warm arms holding him close.

She’d tell him stories.

She’d hum him to sleep.

She'd be there for him.

And never, would she ever let go.

She stared at him painfully now—well, not _him_ so much as all of the machines that currently swarmed and intruded him. The oxygen filtering in through his nostrils tickled his nose.

“Please?” He intercepted her rational protestations long before she could lay them out with all of her usual practicality. “We can move all this stuff aside—just like before.”

A long pause, long enough that the hum from the outside hallway filled the gap.

Garnet rubbed the heels of her hands against her legs, pulling them back and forth as she mulled the request over.

“Okay,” she finally whispered.

“Okay.”

—

In Garnet’s arms, he slept soundly for the first time since he’d arrived at the hospital.

She was conscientious of every wire, every tube, letting them drift over her shoulder like rivers.

—

One nightmareless hour later, Steven picked feebly at his breakfast to the chagrin of the motley audience who had come to watch him do it: Garnet (still tucked next to him, propping her head upon her fist and her elbow upon the pillow), Pearl, his dad, and Dr. Maheswaran. Amethyst was… missing in action.

(“Last night rattled her,” Garnet murmured in answer to his ensuing question. “She didn’t sleep well.” Pearl was close enough to hear. She shifted uncomfortably where she stood, crossing her arms over her chest.)

“C’mon, buddy,” Dad encouraged, his beard lightly frosted with the yogurt parfait he’d gotten from McDonald’s. “Just another bite.”

Steven stared into the mostly full cup of his own yogurt and tried to envision himself picking up his plastic spoon and shoving another scoop into his mouth. Upon waking up from his nap with Garnet, his stomach had felt full, bloated, as though he’d already eaten a full course dinner.

It was just another symptom in a long litany of many.

Loss of appetite.

Something, something about cytokines, Dr. Maheswaran had wearily explained.

“Maybe later?” He shoved the yogurt backwards on the hospital tray lofted to his height. “Sorry—I’m just not hungry right now.”

He could feel Garnet’s frown better than he could see it at the angle he was laying. It leaned quietly against his shoulder; it worried for him.

He tried to ignore it as best as he could.

“Dad, do you have my phone?”

“Yeah, yeah… it’s in my pocket…”

In the corner of the room, Pearl and Dr. Maheswaran were having a conversation that they _believed_ to be softly spoken.

“UNOS just got his blood work,” Dr. M said. “They’ve moved him up significantly on the list.”

As his dad passed him his phone, Steven worked to listen to what the two were saying, which became increasingly hard as the TV played some stupid jingle about vacuum cleaners, and as Garnet asked Dad about who was taking care of the cats.

Pearl murmured something that he couldn’t quite catch, but her thin mouth floated upwards into a weak smile that collapsed just as quickly as she seemed to realize something.

“But… but what does that say about _him_ , how he's doing?"

Dr. Maheswaran simply shook her head.

Steven's phone buzzed in his hand before he had time to glean any kind of meaning from this tilt of the doctor's head to the shadows in the planes of Pearl's skinny face.

He looked down to see who’d texted him, surprised to find that he had more than a couple of missed messages.

(And, like, thirty notifications from Candy Crush.)

**Sunday, 12:09 AM**

_Group name:_ Dork Squad

 **Peridot:** Don’t give up, Steven.

 **Lapis:** we’ll kick your ass if you do

 **Peridot:** Yeah, what she said.

 **Peridot:** Text us when you can.

**Sunday, 8:24 AM**

**Connie:** Hi, Steven. Mom told me that you were sick. Are you okay? Can I come visit you soon?

**Sunday, 10:17 AM**

**Blue Diamond:** Hello, Steven… I drank tea on the balcony this morning and, strangely enough, came to think of you. You would have loved the skyline, I think—all of its many colors. Pink, gold, and blue.

 **Blue Diamond:**  But enough about me—have you been well?

At this last message, Steven's chapped lips tilted upwards into a smile, or at the very least, the suggestion of one.

He began to type.

—

**Sunday, 10:20 AM**

_Group Name:_ Dork Squad

 **Steven:** Hi, guys. Please don’t kick me. :)

 **Lapis:** steven!!!!!

 **Peridot:** STEVEn!

 **Peridot:** You're not dead!

“If we can get him to eat,” Dr. Maheswaran shrugged, “that’d be great, but if we can’t, then we’ll need to resort to something more proactive… a feeding tube, another intravenous line maybe.”

As Pearl opened her mouth to protest, the nephrologist cut across her in a manner that was both curt yet kind.

“I know it seems soon. Hell,” she laughed bitterly, “it seems soon to _me_ … but Steven can take it, Pearl. I’m sure of it.”

If her words were surprising, her next gesture was staggering.

She lifted one of her lined hands and placed it firmly on Pearl's arm.

And to Steven's continued amazement, she _squeezed_.

Seemingly in spite of herself, Pearl appeared to unbend—just a little, just enough—a wry smile appearing at one corner of her mouth.

“Be careful Priyanka,” she teased. “You're verging on sentiment."

“Oh, shush.”

**Sunday, 10:22 AM**

**Steven:** Hi, Connie! Your mom’s in here right now.

“Dr. M, I’m texting Connie! Have anything you want me to tell her?”

“Tell her to tell  _you_ that you need to eat more,” Dr. Maheswaran quipped before returning to talk to Pearl.

 **Steven:** She said hi. Come visit me when you can… I’m going to need the company. Bring the book!!

**Sunday, 10:27 AM**

_Hi, Blue_ , he typed and re-typed into the box. His other well-wishers knew the state he was in, knew where he was and why he was there; Blue Diamond did not. He ate her chocolate cakes and puked them up in her gold inlaid toilet minutes later.

He hadn't told her this.

Didn’t even tell Amethyst.

What could he say?

What did he even _want_ to say?

_Hi, Blue. I hope you're doing great! Me? I’m in the hospital on the verge of dying._

No, no, too direct.

_Hi, Blue. I’m doing well. How about you?_

And that one was both deflective and a _lie_.

She didn't care much for lying, he knew.

 _Oh, my boy,_ she murmured once upon a time, her smile sad, her eyes soft, _it’s been a very long time since I’ve been me… and yet, here you are, completely, unrepentantly you._

Completely and unrepentantly, he was Steven Universe... and he wasn't... wasn't doing great.

But he _wanted_ to be.

And that made up for some of the difference.

 _Hi, Blue_ , he typed again, his mouth set in a resolute line.

He’d tell her the truth.

 **Steven:** Hi, Blue… that sounds really cool. I wish I could have been there to see it.

 **Steven** : But I’m afraid I have a bit of bad news. :/ I passed out last night and, well, had to go to the hospital. Still here this morning.

 **Steven:** Please don’t worry!

He added as a hurried afterthought.

 **Steven:** I hope you’re doing well!

“Are you feeling okay?” Garnet whispered into his ear. She’d been watching him closely, had been skimming her long fingers up and down his arm, so that he could feel something other than his own coldness. “You look sad.”

He hesitated to respond to her, didn't want to tip off everyone else in the room.

His loss of appetite was one symptom, and his _sadness_ was another.

And it was contagious that one.

Infectious.

So he only nodded.

Garnet, if possible, held him even closer.

**Sunday, 11:13 AM**

**Steven:** Hi, Amethyst.

**Steven:** I miss you.

**Steven:**  Come see me when you can?

 _I'm okay_ , he backspaced. 

 _Promise_. He deleted that unkeepable word, too.

He texted her later than he did the others because suddenly, without warning, he had begun to spew up yogurt.


	11. Texts (II)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine's Day, friends! I'm so very appreciative of you guys.
> 
> Slowly, but surely, we're edging to the heart of "Flower Child." (If I can stop being distracted by the inner workings of characters' minds long enough to focus on plot, we might just get there soon, lol.)

**Sunday, 11:32 AM:**

**Blue:** Oh, Steven.

 **Blue:** I’m so sorry to hear that

Her slender fingers hovering just above the touchscreen, Blue Diamond hit _send_ prematurely and realized that she had forgotten to punctuate her text just seconds after she did. Of course, an unfinished sentence wasn’t the _end_ of the world—not in this era of instant communication where proper grammar had been relegated to stuffy scholarly types (such as herself) and punctilious mothers over forty (such as herself).

But.

_But._

The mistake shattered her anyway.

Because it _wasn’t_ about the sentence, nor was it about the grammar. It was about all of the _other_ unfinished things that she had been intimately acquainted with over the course of her lifetime.

It was the fact that she had never finished _Les Misérables_ in grad school, though she had written a beautiful essay on it all the same. It was unfinished diary entries and unfinished diet attempts, her unfinished career and the singularly unfinished look about her these days. In the mirror, she was a ghost’s approximation of a human, tall and smudged and broken. In the part of the world she once ruled with a sure fist, she was very _well_ a ghost to all of the people who had once known her name.

It was her relationship with her mother that ended on the very day she started dating Yellow all those many years ago.

 _You should be ashamed of yourself_ , was paradoxically both a complete sentence and an incomplete one, drawing lines in sands and tearing her asunder at the same time.

And it was Pink Diamond—unfinished at twenty-one years old.

But then again, it was _always_ Pink Diamond, everything about her—her high, lilting laugh and her freckled smile, the way she wrapped her thin arms around Blue’s waist and called her _home_.

It was that last unfinished fight that never ended in _I’m sorry_ or _I love you_.

_You’ll never let me grow up, will you?_

And now, it was Steven Universe, the boy from the cemetery, the flower child, the first smile she had worn on her face in years.

Blue buried her long face in her hands and prayed to the God that she did not believe in anymore, that this child would not become another unfinished thing.

**Sunday, 11:47 AM:**

With a sigh that reached into her bones and hollowed them out for good measure, Pearl finished texting everyone who needed to be texted—all of their friends and family, and sometimes, the friends and family of _their_ friends and family. The list of reassurances, blending into one another after awhile, went a little something like this:

 **Pearl:** Thanks for checking in! I’ll keep you updated.

 **Pearl:** He’s stable! Just resting now.

 **Pearl:** Oh, sure! A casserole would be lovely. Thanks, Barb. Lapis and Peridot are house-sitting, so you can drop it off with them.

 **Pearl:** Please don’t kill our cats.  <3

 **Pearl:** Thank you for the kind words.

And for the thoughts.

Prayers.

But not quite condolences.

( _Thankfully_ , not condolences.)

 **Pearl:** No, my apologies. Now wouldn’t be a great time to visit. Maybe later?

But at the same time:

 **Pearl:** He’s fine! :)

 **Pearl:** He’s stable!

 **Pearl:** Don’t worry!

 **Pearl:** He’s fine!

She was a broken turn table, all scratched up, repeating the same few lines over and over again until she forgot that there was such a thing as the rest of the song.

Stability was not a given for Steven Universe anymore, and _fine_ was such a relative word.

He was _fine_ yesterday, laughing and cutting up and inflating balloons on the beach.

He was _fine_ a week ago, bruised and weary for sure, but on his own feet and independent of machines, giving flowers to random ladies in cemeteries.

And he was _fine_ eight months ago, on the verge of becoming an eighth grader at the local middle school—and then he woke Pearl up in the middle of the night to tell her that it hurt to pee. There had been tears in his dark eyes.

Blood in the toilet.

A diagnosis three weeks later.

 **Pearl:** Hello, I’m so sorry for the late notice, but Steven is in the hospital again. I won’t be able to make my shift tonight.

The three dots appeared almost instantly, much to her clammy chagrin.

 **Her manager replied:** so sorry to hear that! i’ll take you off the schedule. do you need tomorrow night off as well?

 **Pearl:** No! In fact, I can pick up a double tomorrow. Two to closing?

 **Manager:** great!

Pearl _needed_ to be with Steven, needed to hold his hand and press kisses into his forehead, needed to weather every tube and test, every hell and high water, but because life was perverse and they all had horrible health insurance, she needed the money to take _care_ of Steven more.

Trying to ensure that someone _didn’t_ die wasn’t cheap, they had learned fourteen years ago with Rose. But, of course, even that ample forewarning didn’t soften the blow of their current financial situation, which was… _dire_.

For a couple of months now, they’d been toying with selling with the beach house.

It was prime real estate, secluded on the far side of the beach as it was.

(It was home. How could they even _dare?_ )

“You look like you’ve been kicked, Pearl.”

Pearl looked up from her phone to find Garnet staring at her from Steven’s bed, where she was still curled around their boy though he’d long been passed out from his latest puking spell. ( _Yogurt._ He couldn’t hold down _yogurt_.) Her bicolored gaze had always been intense, for Garnet was an intense person, but now, it pierced through Pearl like an x-ray and found her wanting.

Her sadness was seen.

Keenly.

Summed up in seven quiet words.

“I’m working a double tomorrow,” she murmured, looking away, anywhere but those eyes where she was _known_. “You’ll have to call me as soon as he’s done with testing.”

Earlier, Dr. Maheswaran had told her that UNOS would require Steven to have nigh daily blood work done in order to ensure that he was still viable for a kidney transplant. More testing would also ensure that he remained relatively high on the list should a kidney _ever_ become available.

Garnet nodded, meticulous to move only her chin so as not to disturb Steven and all of his tubing. One of his wire infested hands was curled tightly into her shirt.

“You know I will.” But then, with a wry smile hinting at her disdain for phones: “Or Greg will. Or Amethyst—if Amethyst will ever leave the room.”

It was both a joke and not a joke, a joke and a light admonition in that subtle way only Garnet could accomplish.

Shame was a hot trickle of dread in Pearl’s stomach, a pink blush across her cheeks.

“I went overboard last night, didn’t I?”

Another nod. The various machinery currently keeping Steven alive whirred around them in place of a reply.

“I hurt her feelings,” Pearl whispered as the night came rushing back to her—Steven pale and cold beneath her hands, the rage that snarled through her teeth as she locked eyes with Amethyst, who could only stand there and _sob_ and apologize, and _oh_ , how that had irritated her in the moment. “I said some awful things.”

The admission was a horrible creature, condemning her where she sat, twisting all her insides up until she felt like a monster.

“I should apologize,” she said, and then immediately added, “Right?”

 _Garnet_ —she could all but see herself in the other’s dual toned eyes, how her face was contorted in a desperate plea— _shouldn’t I apologize? It_ _feels like I should apologize, but I just don’t know anymore, and all of these decisions and words and empty texts are all getting to be so heavy._

_Please._

_Please tell me what to do._

_I’m so lost._

Garnet studied her in silence for a longer moment still, her expression as impenetrable as ever, until her dark brow suddenly relaxed, unfurling across her eyes in a softness that was meant to be a tiny kindness for Pearl.

“You should apologize, Pearl.”

All of the puzzle pieces suddenly clicked into place.

She should apologize.

“Okay,” she said quietly.

“And Pearl?”

“Yes, Garnet?”

“You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself.”

**Sunday, 12:09 PM:**

**Pearl:** Hi, Amethyst. It’s Pearl.

 **Pearl:** But you knew that, of course, because I’m programmed in your phone, and goodness, I’m already making a mess of this, aren’t I?

 **Pearl:** -_-

 **Pearl:** At any rate, I’m just texting to say… I’m sorry.

 **Pearl:** I’m so sorry for how I acted last night, what I said to you and what I did. It was uncalled for in the highest order, which is to say that I unfairly blamed you for something that you absolutely could not control.

 **Pearl:** Steven’s sick—really sick—and I’ve been trying to ignore that reality for as long as it’s been /our/ reality. When you opened that window last night, I presume you were trying to correct my mistakes when it comes to Steven. You tried to show him the truth, and that is such an incredibly brave thing to do.

 **Pearl:** I’m proud of you, Amethyst, and I miss you, and I love you, and I’m sorry.

Sunlight leaned against her face, and exhaustion leaned against her entire body. Pearl closed her dark eyes in defiance of both of these heavy things and let her templed hands fall into her lap, her long fingers still curled around her phone.

“You did it,” Garnet murmured quietly from the bed.

“I did,” Pearl replied.

Oxygen hissed into Steven.

Wires measured the beat of his heart.

Pearl’s phone buzzed once and then twice.

**Sunday, 12:11 PM:**

**Amethyst:** love you p

 **Amethyst:** b there in a minute?

A smile quivered across the thin line of Pearl’s mouth.

She was so happy, and she was so sad—all at the same time.

Sometimes, these two feelings felt like they were one in the same.

 **Pearl:** See you then.

**Sunday, 1:40 PM:**

**Connie:** Hi, Mom, can I come visit Steven?

 **Priyanka:** Mmm, for a little while if your dad will bring you up here. Don’t wake him up if he’s still napping, though. He has an early shift tomorrow.

 **Connie:** Okay! :) We’re in the parking lot.

 **Priyanka:** You’re in the WHAT now?

 **Connie:** Well, I wanted to see Steven, and Dad wanted to check out that new wax museum between 2nd and 4th, so it worked out!

**Sunday, 1:43 PM:**

**Priyanka:** Doug.

 **Doug:** Our daughter is a singularly persuasive human being.

 **Priyanka:** Doug.

 **Doug:** … Wax Fyodor Dostoevsky.

**Sunday, 1:45 PM:**

**Priyanka:** 4th floor. Truman Ward. I’ll meet you at the doors to let you in.

 **Connie:** Thanks, Mom!

**Sunday, 1:45 PM:**

**Steven:** Hey, don’t be sorry!

 **Steven:** It’s just a fact of my life, you know? I’m going to fight, Blue.

 **Steven:** I promise.

**Sunday, 1:54 PM:**

**Connie:** Steven, I’m on my way up!

 **Steven:** WOOOOOOOOOOOO!

 **Steven:** Give me the play by play. I’m bored

 **Connie:** Okay! First floor, passing the gift shop.

 **Connie:** Now boarding the elevator.

 **Connie:** Contrary to everything “Under the Knife” has ever told me, there are no meet-cutes between superfluously handsome doctors in this dingy little vessel. :(

 **Steven:** You watch Under the Knife too?!?!?!?!

 **Connie:** Yes! It’s one of my favorite shows! (On the fourth floor.)

 **Steven:** Who’s your favorite doctor?

 **Connie:** Oh, probably Stebbins.

 **Steven:** :o

 **Steven:** Stebbins is so mean, though!!

 **Connie:** But he’s efficient! That has to count for something.

The three dots cropped up in a hilariously quick instant, but Connie was faster, shooting off a reply as her red converses squeaked to a stop at the double doors guarding Truman Ward from the rest of the floor. A plain, if abrasive, sign next to the doors instructed her to RING THE BELL FOR ENTRY, but the plexiglas windows in the center of the doors revealed that her mom was just on the other side, chatting with a nurse.

Connie lightly rapped on one of the windows with her knuckles to snag her mother’s attention. Attention promptly snagged, and with a visible sigh that could only be described as fond, her mother nodded and reached past the nurse to hit a button on the wall.

The doors spread outwards.

Connie barreled into her mom’s lab coated arms.

“Hi, Mom!”

“Hello, Connie.”

And then they quickly disentangled themselves, so they could study each other like the scientists they both were. In a sweeping glance, she could tell that her mom had had a rough night. Exhibit A: Her hair was in a ponytail. (It was _never_ in a ponytail.) Exhibit B: She looked positively wispy with fatigue, all of the lines in her face frayed and fraying. It made sense. She’d been called out of bed a little after ten last night, and she’d just gotten off of a day shift a few hours before _that_.

Exhaustion was scrawled all over her like a prescription.

“I presume your father went to go ogle wax people?” Priyanka asked with a wry tilt of her head.

“Yup,” Connie replied, proffering a wry smile of her own. The nurse her mom had been talking to waved a polite goodbye to them both before heading out through the double doors.

“And I also presume that you’re not even _remotely_ sorry for driving up here without asking my permission first, correct?” It was both a harsh question, and it was not, wrangled into something softer by the resignation in her brow.

Connie at least had the decency to _feign_ shame.

“Something like that,” she said sheepishly, studying the floor and then her mother’s impenetrable eyes and then the floor again.

Priyanka sighed, but to her daughter’s surprise, hooked an arm around her shoulder.

“Well then, let’s go see Steven.”

The harsh overheads smiled coldly upon their heads as they began to walk. They passed a nurse’s station, a small girl whimpering on a gurney, swarming scrubs and lab coats. The air tasted like hand sanitizer, and the weight of where she was at, and why she was here, slowly began to dawn on Connie for the first time since she had conceived of this visit.

“Is it bad?” The question stumbled out of her mouth like an accident. Room 11030. Room 11031. They were getting close. Her palms were beginning to feel slippery. “I mean, is _he_ bad?”

Her mother thought on it between Rooms 11032 and 11034, her frown deep, her grip on Connie tight.

“Yes,” she finally conceded, “but also no. He’s certainly in the most dire condition I’ve ever seen him, but I also think we might be close to securing him a kidney. He’s high on the list now. There’s no way that…” She trailed off suddenly, frayed and fraying, unable to complete what seemed like a consolation to Connie’s ears.

Her palm was carving itself into her shoulder.

Room 11037’s door was half-open, laughter and machinery spilling from the crack, an unlikely symphony, an oxymoron—just like _him_.

Him.

The disease.

His unwavering smile.

The machine.

Connie tilted her chin and found a confusion in her mother’s eyes that matched her own.

They were both problem solvers.

Mathematicians.

Logicians.

Scientists.

And here was a problem. Here was a boy who did not deserve what he had gotten.

And there was no easy solution in sight.

Connie leaned her head against her mother’s knuckles to show her that she knew, and her mother closed her tired eyes—just for a moment—to revel in the fact that she was known.

“You’re such a dork, Stevo,” Amethyst riffed from the other side of the door.

“Always,” Steven laughed—warm and bright, here and leaving.

Priyanka rapped smartly on the door.

**Sunday, 1:54 PM:**

**Blue:** You’re incredibly brave, Steven.

 **Steven:** Aw, shucks. You’re flattering me!

 **Blue:** Oh, I suppose I so.

 **Blue:** Could I come visit you soon?

 **Steven:** YES!!

 **Blue:** Would tomorrow be a good time?

 **Steven:** Yeah, I think so! I have a few tests in the morning, but my afternoon should be free. 2ish maybe?

 **Blue:** That sounds perfect.

The living room was cavernous and lonely; sunlight streamed in from the floor to ceiling windows and contrarily had the effect of making everything it touched look all the more abandoned. The ornately embroidered sofa. The glass coffee table. Blue Diamond herself, sitting in her recliner, looking down at her phone. Her skin was so pale that it was stained blue by the light wash emitting from the screen.

So she was getting out tomorrow, it seemed.

To a place that wasn’t her doctor’s office.

Or the cemetery.

Or her doctor’s office.

Or the cemetery.

The action wouldn’t feel real to her until it happened, but the ache she felt for the boy on the other end of the line was raw and visceral, and it was so reminiscent of another time that was raw and visceral, that she began to think of _it_ and _her_ and that night and all of the empty time since and—

An involuntary cry escaped her.

She covered her mouth.

And closed her eyes. 

And did nothing as a single tear spilled over her knuckles and into the dark folds of her robe.

But crying itself was just as untenable as _not_ crying—old-hat and tiring and destructive—so she got up as swiftly as she could manage with her hip, and with her cane clanking ahead of her, traced a familiar pathway across the wooden floor. Past the kitchen and into the hallway. Past Yellow’s study, where typing noises and intermittent swearing could be heard from within. Past ghosts of little ballerina feet scampering down the foyer.

And Blue Diamond stopped at the door between the study and the master bedroom.

And she placed her hand on the knob, her shaking fingers disturbing the brass.

And she turned it, just a little, just enough to hear the door groan in compliance with her wishes.

And then she stopped.

She let go of the knob.

And slowly clanked back to the study and knocked lightly on the door. The typing on the other side stopped abruptly.

“Poppy?” Yellow asked.

“No,” Blue whispered, and that was all that was needed.

There was a soft _oh_ of recognition and the creaking of a well-worn chair. The stumbling of feet. A handle pulled. Yellow Diamond was stark and brilliant, surprised and tender, in the golden light flooding from behind her. It was a Sunday, so she wasn’t in a three-piece suit, but her button-down shirt was meticulously ironed, the collar popped up around the sinewy muscles of her neck.

“Blue,” she said, quite unnecessarily, and she must have realized it because pink popped across her sharp cheekbones. She must have realized this, _too_ , because she began talking and began talking fast. “Do you need something? Are you ill? Should I fetch Livia?”

It’d been a long time since Blue had intentionally sought her out.

Had come to her.

Had wanted her.

It was usually the other way around with them.

Blue slowly shook her head, her long braid swishing in time with the motion. Her right hand trembled on the head of her cane.

“I was thinking about Pink,” she said quietly, and Yellow’s instinctive rebuttal was clear in her amber eyes.

_You’re always thinking about Pink._

But instead, because she was trying hard not to offend, simply whispered, “Okay.”

It was a vulnerable word, or _she_ was vulnerable today one; the distinction was lost in the small space between them.

Yellow’s entire body was taut, a rubber band that had been stretched too far.

“And I was about to find myself in her room again,” Blue continued on, but then, seeing the stricken expression on her wife’s face, tilted her head to the side. “But I didn’t, Yellow… I didn’t chase her ghost today.”

If it’d been up to Yellow, the whole room would have been razed down. (Damn the logistics of destroying a room within a home.)

But because it was up to Blue, the room was a monument to their dead daughter. There were still pink sticky notes on her nightstand that reminded the twenty-one year old to study for an upcoming Calculus exam, books on the floor, clothes in the hamper.

Everything coated in a fine layer of dust.

Yellow swallowed thickly and looked away; even still, Blue could see every line in her face, the strain in them, how they convulsed against her will.

She wanted to reach out to her.

She did not.

“Ask me what I’m going to do tomorrow, Yellow.”

This certainly caught her attention, a command from a woman who had not done much commanding as of late.

Her gaze flickered to Blue’s and stayed there, searching and lost.

“What are you doing tomorrow?”

“I’m going to visit a friend in the hospital.” She said it very simply, like it was just another part of her routine, but it wasn’t, and they both knew it.

It was momentous, and Yellow’s plump lips parted in quiet shock.

“You’re… you’re,” she struggled, the words seemingly strangled in her mouth, “you’re getting _out_?”

“I’m going to try to,” Blue replied evenly, and then she thought on it, clarified herself. “For him at least… his name is Steven.”

“The boy you had cakes with?”

“Yes.”

“The boy who… who made you smile,” she murmured this to herself as though she didn’t believe Blue could hear her.

But she did.

Obviously.

And it surprised her.

She studied the sharp planes of Yellow’s face and found quiet anguish, tucked in the way she pursed her lips, creased in the shadows beneath her striking eyes.

Unspoken: _He made you smile. I could not._

“Yes,” Blue repeated because it was also the truth, even if it was a painful one to admit.

But to be fair, all of their truths were painful these days. Their daughter was dead, and her room was empty, and Blue Diamond half-wanted to be dead, and for four years, she had scarcely cared that she was living. And Yellow Diamond liked to pretend that none of this had scarred her in lasting ways, but there were lines in her face that had never been there before, and sometimes, just sometimes, she sat her in study and cried when she thought no one was listening. And they were approaching their twilight years, and there was no turning back. The bell was rung, and their daughter was dead, and they might never be happy again, and—

That was the truth.

Yellow closed her eyes and then unclosed them, obviously trying to master her emotions into locations that weren’t words.

“Will he… be okay?” But she was only human, despite what she'd have the common person believe, so strain leaked out into the innocuous question anyway.

“I don’t know,” Blue murmured, and _this_ truth stung with all the others.

She could be caring for this boy only to end up shattered if he died.

And the possibility of this was not lost on Yellow Diamond. Cynical. Skeptical. Practical.

It shone in her eyes, in the firm set of her jaw.

What came next, however, was not an admonition, but a small gesture. And because it was a small gesture, and because small gestures were rare between them, it was _felt_ : Yellow reached out, slowly, almost cautiously, and tucked a stray strand of hair behind Blue’s ear. Her lined palm lingered against her cheek for an infinitesimal second before falling into a clenched fist by her side.

“Well, at least he’s got a chance.”

Unspoken: _Pink didn’t._

Blue Diamond found that she missed her wife’s touch.

The weight of it.

The warmth.

“Yes,” she concurred. “At least he has a chance.”

**Sunday, 2:25 PM:**

**Pearl:** I absolutely love her!!

 **Amethyst:** we’re literally sitting next 2 each other lol

 **Pearl:** Yes, but I don’t want to embarrass them… I’m just so happy that Steven has a new friend! She’s so nice and smart!

 **Amethyst:** to b fair he’s also friends w/ an old lady in a bathrobe now

 **Pearl:** Ugh, don’t remind me.

Amethyst looked up from her phone at the very same time that Pearl looked up from her phone, and then they studiously tried to not look at each other as they trembled in silent laughter. But because they were both assholes, they failed at this monumentally simple task, and locked eyes just long enough to break them both.

“ _Stop_ ,” Pearl moaned, clutching her stomach in a feeble attempt of getting herself back under control.

“You first,” Amethyst shot back, laughing too hard to punctuate the threat with a shit-eating grin.

The entire room turned to look at them. Dr. M drew herself away from her chart long enough to raise an eyebrow. Garnet and Greg stared, one quite subtly and one quite openly. On the bed, Steven and Connie extracted themselves from the book they were reading.

“Whatcha laughing about?” Steven asked cutely. He tilted his head with a conspiratorial smile, and his entire oxygen getup slid sideways with him.

“Nothing,” Pearl said.

“Cats,” Amethyst said at the very same time.

And they dissolved all over again.

Pearl placed a steadying hand on Amethyst’s shoulder, and Amethyst leaned into the touch as their bodies shook with laughter.

Nothing was right with their world, but just for a moment, they pretended like it _could_ be.

Priyanka Maheswaran’s frown deepened the longer she stared at her clipboard.

And it positively turned into a scowl when she read Steven’s heart monitor.

**Sunday, 3:18 PM:**

**Steven:** Thanks for coming to visit me today!

 **Connie:** Of course! I had so much fun meeting everyone!

 **Steven:** They liked meeting you too!!!

 **Connie:** Score!!!

Weariness was like a second skin on her mother as they walked down Truman Ward again. She said nothing, only deigning to nod at various colleagues who greeted her as they walked by.

Connie _wanted_ to talk about Steven, wanted to talk about Garnet, Amethyst, and especially Pearl, whom she had a lot in common with—but she bit her lip against a torrent of questions and studied the way her shoes scraped against the clinically clean floor instead.

Because she knew.

She’d seen the way Steven’s whole body was manifested with tubes and the bags under his guardians’ eyes and the fear in _his_ eyes that he tried so hard to hide with a smile.

When they had first arrived, she had hugged him as tenderly as his machinery would allow and asked him if he was okay.

And he only shook his head and laughed like he was.

Because he knew.

And she knew.

And everyone in that room knew.

(He was dying. It was happening fast.)

As they exited the double doors, Connie reached up and tentatively took her mother’s hand.

Her mother did not let go in response.


	12. Monday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, folks!! First off, I wanted to kick this chapter off by reiterating that your continued support on this mess of a fic has meant so much to me. When you guys tell me how much "Flower Child" resonates with you, I find myself so incredibly humbled by the thought that I'm speaking to incredibly powerful and real emotions, especially since I sometimes use this fic to negotiate ideas or struggles I'm dealing with myself. Thank you for taking this journey with me, for sticking through thick and thin. c: 
> 
>   **Also:**
> 
> 1\. I've added and moved around some drawings around the fic! The plan is to eventually replace all of the traditional drawings with digital ones and also to _add_ doodles to chapters that don't have one yet. (Just for reference, new drawings can be found on 5, 6, and 11.
> 
> 2\. If you haven't seen it yet, I wrote a "Flower Child" one-shot about how Blue and Yellow first met: [The Princess and the Knight.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17826023) It's based off that nightmare Yellow had in Chapter 6!
> 
> 3\. And finally, I don't want to promise a specific date, but I will promise you that the next chapter is probably going to come pretty quickly. It's one of those ones that's demanding to be written, and I've never been particularly good at saying no, lol.

**i.**

Monday morning found Yellow Diamond in her study, watching nothing as dawn slowly drew itself around her like a pinkish cape. The shadows under her eyes pooled in the soft light, and the crow’s feet edging them became stark, black, defined. (God, when was the last time she’d had a full night’s sleep? When was the last time she hadn’t stayed awake—fighting and chasing away and courting sordid demons? When was the last time she’d seen a proper _bed_?) Even still, she was already impeccably dressed for it to not even be seven yet. Her golden hair was swept upwards in a coiffure sharp enough to cut yourself on, and she wore a black suit in the matter-of-fact way that the sky wore the sun. Her heels were perfectly practical (thank you very much), her face meticulously painted on.

Put together but not quite, she stared at nothing.

Maybe the wall.

Maybe the minuscule crack in the door.

And could not bring herself to think about the three meetings she had today, so consumed by the thought of Blue.

Blue was getting out today.

She would assume the stage.

She would get into a town car and _not_ go to the cemetery where their dead daughter lay.

The world would spin on, and for once— _for the first time in four years_ —her wife would spin with it.

It made Yellow so damn happy.

And it made her so damn sad at the same time.

Blue was moving… not _on_ , never on… but _forward_.

And it wouldn’t be because of Yellow.

She took an impulsive drag of her coffee and half-hoped it would scald her.

( _She_ hadn’t been enough. _They_ hadn’t been.)

When the analog clock on the wall unwillingly dragged her into the next minute, the CEO finally slid her golden gaze from the door to the intercom panel propped next to her lamp. She pressed one of the buttons, eliciting a crackling noise at first, before the line was abruptly snagged by a voice that was equal parts panic and equal parts sleep: “Yes, Mrs. Diamond?!”

“Did I wake you?” Of course, Yellow knew that she had, but she at _least_ had enough courtesy to feign otherwise.

“No, ma’am!” Poppy gamely lied. “What can I do for you?”

“I need you to do a favor for me,” she said, biting her lip. She could have added _please_ to let the maid know that she was serious, but reticence was this particular woman’s both strength and weakness.

“Anything, Mrs. Diamond!”

“You can knock that off now. We’ve already established who I am.”

“Of course, Mrs—” Poppy caught herself with a little squeak. “O-of course.”

Yellow sighed—quite dramatically in proportion to the circumstances really—but pressed on anyway. “I need you to call up to the flower shop and send an arrangement to someone in Empire City Hospital. I’ll leave my credit card on the desk.”

It wasn’t a particularly unusual request. Yellow was sending flowers and champagne bottles to business associates all the time. Even through the staticky transmission, she could hear Poppy scribbling these directions down on paper.

The scratching stopped. “And whom shall I direct the flowers to, ma’am?”

She inhaled sharply.

Oh, hell and shit.

She only knew the kid’s name and approximate age (older than five but certainly younger than twenty).

“His name is Steven,” she sniffed haughtily (to disguise her ignorance, of course). “Young boy. You should be able to locate him.”

“A-ah, yes, ma’am.”

“Good.” Yellow leaned back in her chair and looked quite pleased with herself until she just as suddenly didn’t; with a sudden thought, her dark brow depressed into a frown over her eyes. (When was the last time that her mouth and eyes and chest unbent in a smile? When was the last time worry didn’t transform her entire physiognomy, didn’t make her appear ten years older—ten years more grim and demanding and cold?)

“And, Poppy?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Make it anonymous.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

**ii.**

Monday morning found Poppy on the verge of hysterics as she called three different extensions in Empire City Hospital trying to inquire after a sick boy named Steven.

No, she didn’t know his last name!

No, she couldn’t tell you a room number!

No, she most _certainly_ was not pranking them!

_Gah!_

**iii.**

Monday morning found Priyanka Maheswaran nursing her third tumbler of coffee as she surveyed Steven’s guardians from over its rim. In Room 11037, they stood in the empty space where Steven’s bed had once been. The technicians had just taken him down for a couple of scans for UNOS, but even though the five adults in the room objectively knew that, the absence of the boy unnerved the air. Abandoned wires spilled across the scorchingly white floor. The heart monitor on the wall was a flat black, leering at them with its emptiness.

Pearl’s hair seemed to be positively standing on edge.

They were all in shambles—each of them, in their own ways.

The doctor gathered herself into some semblance of professionalism and half-wondered if such posturing was but an exercise in pointlessness. Surely, these people could see through the cracks, the holes in her carefully constructed facade.

Surely, they knew that she cared.

“I’m going to be blunt with you—”

Amethyst cut across her with a wry smile that did not quite reach her eyes. “You always are, Dr. M.”

“True,” Priyanka conceded with a sigh, “and so I see no reason to be anything else with you all.”

She was as sharp as one of her surgical instruments and equally as direct.

Greg’s eyes bore her down, were haunting in their worn sockets.

It was his damn _child_.

It’d once been his damn girlfriend.

(At the funeral, he pressed Steven against his chest and wept in place of a eulogy.)

“Even with dialysis,” she said, clutching her cup like it was a lifeline, “and even with the extra support we’re giving him here in the hospital, we’re still racing against the clock. His heart is working harder to compensate his kidneys, and his lungs are working harder to compensate his heart.”

He was dying.

That was the cold and hard truth.

Priyanka did not say it, for she didn’t need to—the unspoken words landed in the room anyway, striking precisely, like bullets, the carnage written all over their faces. Pearl’s hands on her stomach were gored with it. There was a third eye on Garnet’s head where her troubled brow met in the middle.

(At the funeral, Pearl had to be lightly pulled away from the casket. She stared at nothing. She said nothing. She stared at Rose.)

(At the funeral, people whispered that Garnet was callous for looking so stoic, so put together, so tearless. They didn’t notice her hands, how they trembled by her sides.)

“Ya gotta say something, Doc,” Amethyst said when the silence got to be too much, when the room started to feel too empty. The air around her was frenetic, charged. She looked liable to be both the predator _and_  the prey trapped in a corner. “That’s what’s wrong. Now what’s the solution?”

(At the funeral, Amethyst cried openly, viscerally, and yet, still found the strength to pull Pearl away from the casket, to squeeze Garnet’s hand, to hold Steven when Greg had to bury his face in his hands.)

(At the funeral, Priyanka made herself notice all of these little things, forced herself to carve them into her memory, one scalpel incision at a time, as both a punishment and a reminder. Somehow, someway, she could have done better, could have _been_ better. Moving forward, she would, dammit. She would _never_ attend another funeral like this.)

“The solution, of course,” she sighed, “is a viable kidney, and I know you don’t want to hear that. I know that it’s the same thing I said last time and the time before that, but dammit, that’s what it’s going to take.”

If anger seared the edge of this proclamation, it was not an anger intended for the broken people standing across from her. It was for the woefully inadequate transplant system where eighteen people across the world died every day because they couldn’t get the organ they so desperately needed. It was for the unfair fact that neither Greg nor Amethyst nor Garnet nor Pearl were matches for the boy they would all give their lives to protect. No hesitation. No blinking. It was for the incredulous idea—ludicrous, absurd, preposterous!—that even if they _did_ find a kidney, that this family wouldn’t have the means to pay for it because health care was so screwed up in this damn country.

If Priyanka was angry, it was for the utter insanity of it all.

The madness.

There was no rationality in a fourteen-year old dying.

“It’s so perverse,” Pearl whispered into the silence, “that we’re here again.”

It was a familiar stage, a familiar scene.

Just someone else in the bed that had once contained a woman with kind eyes and a warm smile—a brilliant, compassionate heart.

Garnet looked away, clenched her fists by her sides.

“It has to end differently, though,” Greg said, a plea in his voice and his eyes. It was scratched across his entire body. It was a scar. “I… I can’t… do that again. _I can’t lose him_.”

It was wonder that he didn’t shatter where he stood, that they all didn’t. Amethyst reached up and placed a hand on his back.

(This was a familiar image, too.)

(Hell, it was a memory—simply transplanted into the here and now.)

“Greg… all of you—” She began and abruptly stopped. Priyanka Maheswaran was as sharp as one of her surgical instruments and equally as direct, but for once in her life, _she didn’t want to be_. She wanted to tell this family that their kid was going to make it, that they’d find him a kidney, that the surgery would go well, that love and joy and peace would win at the end of the damn day. She wanted to give them hope; she desperately wanted a modicum of the sensation for herself.

But what could she say?

What could she possibly fucking say?

“I’m so sorry,” she said, her voice cracking, “but this is all I have.”

**iv.**

Monday morning found Connie Maheswaran unfolded across the backseat of her dad’s cruiser, scrolling through another medical journal, only occasionally stopping to jot down notes in a tab-marked, dog-eared, well-worn, well-loved composition book. When he wasn’t pretending to be interested in his heretofore _very_ boring stakeout, her father’s wire-rimmed glasses peered at her from the rearview mirror.

“You’re sure looking studious for it to be a sunny day in July,” he quipped lightly. Some old alternative band warbled through his ancient cassette deck as he said it, lending him an inadvertent lyricalness. Connie, penciling down donor qualifications in her neat handwriting, _mmm’d_ in distracted reply.

“Oh, I get it,” he shrugged playfully, feigning hurt. “You’re busy. Alas, I’d forgotten the singleminded passions of youth so removed am I by the passage of time. Woe unto me!”

“You’re such a dork, Dad.”

_Donors must have a compatible blood type with the patient._

“Oh?” He raised a bushy eyebrow in the mirror. “Is that a polysyllabic response I hear?”

_Donors must be in good physical and mental health before consenting to the surgery._

A master of irony, Connie sparred back with a nice and succinct, “Yep.”

_Donors must be at least eighteen-years old to qualify for surgery._

These six words were logical, reasonable, were only to be expected—and yet, ice dropped through the twelve-year old’s stomach anyway; a burning sensation pricked the corners of her eyes. She wiped at these feelings furiously, scrubbed them away with the back of her hand.

“Touché,” her dad sighed.

**v.**

Monday morning found Pearl dragging her feet against the wooden deck, her overnight bag dripping carelessly from her shoulder, a world and a boy and a boy who _was_ her world pressing against the column of her spine. Her fingers shook as they fumbled first with her keys and then with the handle of the screen door.

The hot, July sun taunted her pale neck one last time before she finally escaped into the dark house… only to be immediately swallowed by its emptiness.

God, it was desolate.

So wrong and so vile.

Gray light wept onto the wooden floors.

To her left, there was no Steven in a bed that was left unmade from the last night he’d slept in it. M.C. Bear Bear dangled halfway off the mattress, deserted and derelict without the boy who brought him to life with a smile and a laugh.

To her right, the reading nook in the corner of the room _almost_ looked untouched, betrayed only by a slight crookedness skewing one of the cushions. Steven had knelt there, and Steven had fallen, and now Steven wouldn’t be leaving the hospital for a very long time if… if… _if_?

(If ever again.)

The dull thud of his fall echoed in her head.

It dropped into the pit of her stomach and ruined her.

(“I’m sorry,” Priyanka Maheswaran had said, and Priyanka Maheswaran _never_ said sorry, "but this is all I have.”)

Pearl clutched her rumpled shirt and tried not to shatter as she limped further into the living room, where a lump on the couch caught the corner of her eye. 

The lump, of course, was Peridot, wrapped in a blanket and snoring slightly. Without her glasses on, she looked particularly young—vulnerable. (Though, ferocious as _she_ was, she’d claw someone’s eyes out before ever acquiescing to such gooey epithets.) 

Pearl didn’t necessarily want to wake her, but she didn’t want to leave her on the hard couch either, so in the end, she approached quietly and skimmed her knuckles lightly against the girl’s exposed shoulder.

Emerald eyes flew open with a jolt.

A startled cat tore from under the blanket and streaked out of the room.

“ _Nyeh!_ ”

“Sorry,” Pearl apologized as Peridot scrambled to find her bearings and her glasses and a little shred of dignity, too. Once her frames were adjusted on her pointed nose, she looked positively scandalized—which was fair, of course. “Just wanted to let you know I’m here. I’m going to nap for a few hours before my shift, so you’re welcome to go home for a bit or crash in a bed if you’d like.”

But scandal turned into realization turned into somberness in the other’s face.

Pearl found that she wasn’t ready to face it; her duffel bag slipped slightly on her shoulder.

“Where’s Lapis?” She tried quickly, but Peridot was quicker—intuitive and stubborn, a deadly combination.

“Swim practice. Never mind her.” Peridot waved a flippant hand. “How’s Steven?”

She knew the litany of lies by heart now.

_He’s fine._

_He’s stable._

_He’s resting._

_He’s fine._

And she tried to summon one on her lips for Peridot—she tried so damn hard to stay together—but how could she?

How could she fucking do it?

“… Pearl?”

"Peridot, I... I—" Tears leaked from her eyes.

And dripped down her beaky nose.

And splattered her sweater with their ruin.

Something was building in her stomach, in her chest, in the column of her throat.

And she _tried_ splaying her fingers across her mouth, _tried_ damming up the carnage, but—

" _Pearl!_ "

—she was falling apart.

Or she'd already done so.

And this was just the explicit proof:

Pearl collapsed to her knees and wept.

**vi.**

Monday morning found Greg Universe on his metaphorical knees. He was desperation reconciled, a man not really sitting on a bench, so much as he was a man being supported by one. A phone was in his hand; there was an exhaustion on his shoulders.

“Ya could have called me sooner, y’know,” Greg’s cousin said on the other end of the line. There wasn’t admonition in the sentence, just resignation.

And concern.

And grief.

Andy had just met Steven a couple of months ago, but like all people who came into his son’s orbit, found it impossible _not_ to love him, not to care. Andy had taken him up in his old plane and shown him the stars, and Steven had shown that cantankerous old coot that he didn’t have to roam the world looking for home.

Greg spidered his hand across his forehead and looked down at the concrete between his feet—the minuscule cracks in the pavement, the imperfect rubble. He burned all over; he wanted to burn the world to the ground; he wished the ground would swallow him whole; his son was sick.

“I didn’t want to face it, Andy,” he whispered, his voice strained tight, on the verge of breaking. “I’ve already lost Rose… I didn’t… I couldn’t—”

But his cousin took pity on him and quickly cut him off. “—I know, kiddo… I know. Listen, I’ll go get tested and get back to ya, okay?”

“Okay.” He closed his sagging eyes. “Thanks.”

“Tell Champ that I’m gonna bring him something cool the next time I fly down there.” Andy’s thick Jersey accent was slung with emotion (or whiskey one), all the hard consonants broken and slurred. “Ya got that, ya bald bastard?”

Greg chuckled lifelessly. “Yeah, I hear you loud and clear.”

“Good man,” and the phone clicked off just as warm hand landed quietly on his shoulder, drawing him back from the darkness. Of course, it was Garnet, who had been his companion in exhausting their contact lists and asking friends and family to get tested. Of course, it was Garnet who always knew exactly what he needed in the moment that he did.

She was steady like that, dependable.

Somehow, he found it in himself to wonder who was the same for _her_? Who was steady? Who was dependable? Who was the shoulder she leaned upon, if she needed to lean at all?

She’d always been so self-sufficient, so contained and in control.

_Or was it Steven?_

The possibility hit him suddenly, like a train.

(He thought on it; he chewed; he concluded: it was probably Steven.)

“You can’t beat yourself up, Greg,” she murmured. Sunlight glinted across her sunglasses, eradicating even the suggestion of her eyes beneath them. “We didn’t think we’d be here this fast. We thought we’d have more…”

“…time,” he finished quietly and choked a little at the end.

(“I’m sorry,” Priyanka Maheswaran had said. He then waited for the blow, and she promptly delivered. “But this is all I have.”)

There  _wasn’t_ any more time.

There was only waiting and hoping and waiting and hoping and—

They’d been waiting and hoping for eight months now.

Garnet’s fingernails dug into his shirt.

“S’not that I want to be hard on myself,” he mumbled, swiping clumsily at his snotting nose. “It’s just that I feel like I’m failing my kid, y’know? He’s in there fighting for his life, and I… I can’t do anything about it!”

The concrete mocked him with its gray, blank face; he wished it would rise up from the ground and strike him; he’d give anything if it would clock him cold; he deserved it; or maybe he didn’t; maybe everything was all screwed up, and he just didn’t really want to feel a damn thing—for hours at a time, for days.

“But, Greg,” Garnet whispered, her voice tight around the edges, her grip on him tighter. “Look at you. Look at that phone in your hand. We’ve been calling people all morning. We’ve been fighting for him for months.” She almost sounded angry, which was a rarity in and of itself for _this_ particular woman who so masterfully boxed all of her emotions down and away. “That isn’t _nothing_.”

But then, suddenly, without warning, further complicating everything he knew about her, Garnet balled her free hand into a fist and knocked it hard against the bench. Her knuckles came back imprinted with the striations in the wood.

“It can’t be nothing,” she growled. “All of this can’t be for _nothing_. He can’t just—” But she stopped short, apparently choked, and Greg closed his eyes again.

Steven _could_ just die, and that would be that.

It would be their entire world.

It would all be for nothing.

The sun was so damn bright today; it burned, and it burned, and it burned.

**vi.**

Monday found Amethyst teetering beneath a hella big flower arrangement as she stumbled into Room 11037.

God, the container was almost as huge as her head and just as full of crap—which was to say, beautiful sunflowers whose golden petals unfurled symmetrically around dark anthers. The strain of carrying it reddened her fingers as she did well to deposit it on the moveable tray Steven ordinarily used as a table when he ate.

(Not that he _did_ eat.)

(Not really.)

The thud of the vase hitting the table jolted Steven from what had been a half-lidded gaze to a well-alert panic.

“Wha—?”

“Sorry, Steven,” she apologized, still panting from the exertion. She then leaned against the foot of his bed, wrapping one of her newly sore arms against the frame. “Didn’t mean for that to be so loud. Stupid thing was just so heavy.”

Encumbered as he was by wires, he couldn’t really move his head to take a closer look at the arrangement, but all the same, panic softened in his eyes—became appreciation and awe in a blink.

It hurt Amethyst to look at him.

(She would never look away.)

“Ohmygosh!” he croaked in one impressive breath. “These are so pretty. Who sent them?”

“Beats me,” Amethyst shrugged, quite unfortunately exacerbating the soreness in her shoulders. “Nurse said that your secret admirer wanted to stay anonymous.”

“ _Aw_ ,” he grinned, “I have a secret admirer?”

“Ahahaha, somethin’ like that. Could it be the old lady?” Not that anyone was asking, but she thought it was quite admirable of herself to show restraint enough not to go with a more colorful moniker. “She’s rich enough to send something as fancy-schmancy as this.”

Steven thought on it for a moment—lifted his dark eyes towards the ceiling and hummed tentatively. The fluorescents overhead crowned his black hair with a harsh halo and illuminated the deep grooves beneath his eyes, the hollows in his face, the yellowish pallor of his skin.

Jaundice was setting in, making a fine mockery of his youth.

(God, would it hurt to just look away just _once_?)

“Truuuuuue,” he eventually conceded, “but I don’t know why she just wouldn’t bring them _with_ her.”

Oh, _yeah._

That was something that was happening.

It was a hella good thing Pearl was working today.

“Oh, yeah. She’s coming later, isn’t she?”

“Yup. Two o’clock.” Amethyst glanced over her shoulder at the clock on the wall—it was nearly one—and then turned back to him, a small frown puckering at her lips.

“That isn’t a long time from now.”

“And?”

“And, buddy, my pal, my _friend_ ,” Amethyst smiled bitterly, “I hope you know what you’re gonna say to her because you look like _shit._ ”

“Rude!” He stuck his tongue out and approximated some semblance of a faux offended expression, but his brow furrowed above his bruised eyes all the same.

These past three days had done their number on Steven, and he was a far cry from the boy who bounced in the elevator ride up to Blue Diamond’s opulent penthouse suite, and he was absolutely the _ghost_ of the kid he was eight months ago.

(He used to pounce on Amethyst’s back and demand that she fake wrestle with him.)

(He used to play on the beach for hours.)

(He’d been so vibrant and alive and present and capable, and _God_ , how was it even fair that he wasn’t anymore?)

“Just tellin’ the truth,” Amethyst sighed. “I dunno much about her, but going off the bathrobe and smudged mascara alone, I wouldn’t guess that she’s got a strong constitution.”

Steven batted back with a worldweary sigh of his own.

“I know,” he murmured, “but, also, like, I _dunno_ , Amethyst—I think strength for her might just be wandering around in a bathrobe, you know?” On top of his blankets, he softly skimmed his thumb across the knuckles of his other hand, careful to avoid all of the intravenous lines. “Honestly, I think… she might struggle with even that.”

The translation was clear in his face: Blue Diamond struggled to even _be._

At that very moment, Amethyst was simultaneously irritated and sympathetic, understanding and unkind. She began to pick viciously at one of the loose threads in Steven’s blanket; her long bangs fell unceremoniously over her right eye.

“If that’s true, then she might break just seeing you, Steven.”

He thought on this, too, closing his eyes and settling his thumb across the ridges of his knuckles.

She hated when he did this.

Hated how still he looked.

(And yet, she still couldn’t bring herself look away.)

“Maybe”—he opened his eyes—“but maybe not… I want to help her, Amethyst. I think she needs it.”

 _You're_  the one whoneeds help, she wanted to say.

(He looked so sincere as he said it, so kind and warm and believing in the idea that a broken, old lady could be saved by his smile alone.)

You don’t owe a damn thing to this lady.

(He didn't owe a damn thing to all of the other people he'd helped, but he still did it anyway.)

Take care of yourself.

(What more could he do?)

Fight for yourself.

(What more could _any_ of them do?)

For me.

( _I can't lose you, buddy._ )

For us.

( _We'd be lost._ )

But those options would fundamentally be unSteven, and it was _so_ Steven to be so damn selfless, to extend a flower to a grieving woman in a cemetery, a hand and his stupidly big heart to what was clearly a person in need.

“Yeah,” she finally said, her voice thick with emotion, “I gotcha.”

On that tray that he used but _didn’t_ use because he couldn’t hold down solid food anymore, a flower head leaned towards Steven, as though it was itching to say hello.

**vii.**

Monday found Blue Diamond standing at the threshold of the exit (and the beginning), her long hand pale against the handle that she had been gripping for hours now—weeks, months, years.

(It’d been minutes, but time swallowed her up and spit her out back again. She was here in her penthouse suite preparing to visit a boy in the hospital; she was in that fatal night from all those many years ago, screaming.)

She was coming, Steven Universe.

Her silvery hair swept down her back in its signature braid; a dress, not a bathrobe, unfolded down her curvy frame.

In just a moment or hours from now—weeks, months, maybe years—she would walk out of the door.

(It would be a few minutes; it’d be a near panic attack; it would be bravery.)

 _She was coming_.


End file.
